Giant of the Grand Siecle: The French Army, 1610-1715

Giant of the Grand Siecle

Giant of the Grand Siecle T H E F R E N C H ARMY, 1610-1715

John A. Lynn University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaijjn

CAMBRIDGE

UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521572736 ©John A. Lynn 1997 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1997 Reprinted 1998 This digitally printed first paperback version 2006 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Lynn, John A. (John Albert), 1943Giant of the grand siecle : the French Army, 1610-1715 / John A. Lynn. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-521-57273-8 (hardbound) 1. France. Armee - History - 17th century. 2. France. Armee - History 18th century. 3. France - History, Military - 1610-1643. 4. France - History, Military-1643-1715. I. Title. UA702.L9523 1997 355'.00944' 09032 - dc20 96-22239 CIP ISBN-13 978-0-521-57273-6 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-57273-8 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-03248-3 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-03248-2 paperback

To the memory of my parents, Judd Benjamin Lynn (1903-1938) Adelle Savage Lynn (1908-1983)

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

page ix xix

PART O N E : CONTEXT AND PARAMETERS 1 2

Contexts of Military Change in the Grand Siecle Army Growth

3 32

PART T W O : A D M I N I S T R A T I O N AND SUPPLY 3 4 5 6

The Military Administration Food and Fodder Providing Other Essentials The Tax of Violence and Contributions PART T H R E E :

7 8 9

67 107 147 184

COMMAND

The Costs of Regimental Command The Culture of Command The H i g h Command

221 248 282

PART FOUR: THE RANK AND FILE 10 11 12 13

Army Composition Recruitment Discipline and Desertion Elements of Morale and Motivation: Dependence and Loyalty vii

321 347 397 415

Vlll

CONTENTS

PART FIVE: THE PRACTICE OF WAR 14 15 16

Weaponry and Tactics Learning and Practicing the Art of Field Warfare Positional Warfare

453 513 547

Epilogue: Insights o n State Formation

595

Bibliography Index

611 629

Preface

I

keep safe the memory of an invisible giant. The son of kings, this armed colossus once towered above his foes to bestride a continent. He ate a mountain of bread and drank a river of wine at each meal. Yet historians renowned for being the most forward looking and sophisticated in skill and interpretation, fail to see him; they write as if he never existed. He must be invisible. Otherwise, how could something so big, so costly, and so powerful remain so long unnoticed? This book is a portrait of that giant, the French army of the grand siecle, made visible again. THE GREAT

UNKNOWN

As a subject for historical inquiry, the army of the grand siecle has attracted the attention of only a few diligent scholars and talented amateurs, but it has never been at center stage, in the spotlight. Such neglect seems all the more bizarre given the self-evident importance of the subject. The army of the grand siecle was the largest institution created by the monarchy; in the 1690s its paper strength climbed to 420,000 men, over six times larger that it had been a century before. The wars of Louis XIII and Louis XIV defined the borders of the state, and the needs of the army that fought those wars shaped its government. Supporting such a gargantuan force also exhausted France and in one fashion or another imposed upon the lives of most of her population. Certainly such an army deserves to be cast in a central role. Yet it remains but dimly perceived. It is easier to prove that few have seen the giant than to explain why. An understanding of this disregard, such selective blindness, must account for, first, those with a predisposition to regard the history of war as something of inherent interest or practical value and, second and more importantly, those with a broader view of the past for its own sake. French authors who turned to history to satisfy an audience excited by tales of martial glory, a popular audience that has always seemed to be there, ix

X

PREFACE

extolled French Imperial conquests, not the grand siecle. The glare of Napoleonic brilliance outshone the radiance of the Sun King. The Napoleonic wars have probably attracted more attention from nineteenth and twentieth century readers than any other period of French military history. Library shelves groan under the weight of works on the campaigns of Napoleon, yet to my knowledge the only complete history of the campaigns of Louis XIV was written in the first half of the eighteenth century - the seven-volume study by the marquis de Quincy, Histoire militaire de Louis le Grand roi de France (1727). Soldier historians who studied military history for what it might teach them about the conduct of future wars also shunned Louis XTV in favor of Napoleon I. The Section historique of the French general staff, which operated between 1899 and 1914, provides one measure of the military's interests; it published eighty volumes on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars but only six specialized studies dealing with the reign of Louis XTV.1 After all, the emperor had marched his armies across Europe, from Lisbon to Moscow, while Louis's forces ventured less far from home. Napoleon's wars were short and decisive, brought to a head in climactic battles, at least until the debacle of 1812, while Louis's conflicts dragged on as long, indecisive, and costly wars of attrition. In short, there seemed to be more to be learned from a study of Napoleon's military genius. To this day, war colleges dissect the Ulm-Austerlitz and Jena-Auerstadt campaigns, but they have little interest in the siege-dominated wars fought by Louis's great generals. It is harder to explain why historians of a more general cast of mind have not discussed the military institutions of the seventeenth century to any great degree. Only in the nineteenth century did Europeans turn seriously to writing history as something other than a means of memorializing the past, mining it for moral examples, or employing it to abstract rules and principles. The professional historians living in that period studied the grand siecle and produced major biographies, histories, and collections of documents. One such collection assembled by Jean Pelet and Francois Vault, Memoires militaires relatifs a la successiontfEspagne(1835-62), dealt with military matters extensively, but it was the exception. Pelet was, in fact, a general with the staff and the director of the military archives. While Richelieu, Louis XIV, Colbert, and other dominant figures received their biographers, the army remained in the shadows. Perhaps the most obvious answer for this neglect is that French scholars left the discussion of military phenomena to military enthusiasts and specialists, who, as we have seen, had other things on their minds. The lack of interest in seventeenth-century warfare among French scholars in the decades after World War I is more easy to comprehend. The great war became the focus of professional military studies, pushing aside the 1

John A. Lynn, "The Publications of the Section historique, 1899-1915," Military Affairs (April 1973), 56-59. The count of volumes given here is a count of volumes not of titles, so multivolume works are added in by the number of volumes in the work.

PREFACE

XI

Napoleonic fixation, while the long casualty lists horrified the intellectuals. How could those who witnessed the massacre of Verdun speak of war without revulsion? As a consequence, the modern intellectual's inherent distaste for the study of war only grew. But the historical community harbored additional motives for turning a blind eye to the military past. Shock at the human cost of World War I was amplified by fashions in professional historical studies in France as they turned decidedly to the left. Warfare seemed a far less important subject for study than did society and economics, which, it was claimed, explained the existence of armed conflict in the first place. The most notable historical work on the wars of Louis XTV that appeared between the world wars centered on Vauban, the great fortress builder, perhaps as a reflection of the Maginot Line psychology. Certainly, having just endured a monstrous war of attrition, the French had no desire to relive the endless wars fought by the Sun King. After World War II, the giant remained unseen. Historiographical trends in France and elsewhere continued to drift to the left. All too often, enthusiasm for social history was coupled with contempt for political history. Many French scholars became fascinated with history "from below" and emphasized the life of the lower classes; others stressed the need to study the "longue duree" rejecting political events, most notably wars, as mere surface phenomena. Particularly in America, the historical community has most often paid attention to military institutions only to condemn them and has mistakenly censured those who concentrate on the military past as individuals who must idealize war. Adding to this sense of revulsion is the notion that while the exploration of other phenomena is uplifting and part of a positive social or political program, the study of military history possesses no social value. The American intelligentsia's natural and abiding distaste for military history became even deeper during the Vietnam war. Today, the "cutting edge" of scholarship welcomes gender and cultural studies to form a blessed trinity with social themes and condemns the history of war and military institutions with what seems to be growing self-righteous conviction. There have been some recent attempts, however, to ascertain what has been invisible for so long. Andre Corvisier, in his social examination, Varmee frangaise de la fin du XVJIe siecle au ministere du Choiseul: Le soldat (1964),

translated the study of the military into a mode acceptable to dominant currents of interpretation. Corvisier has been a key mover in the effort to read military institutions back into their social context, an effort solemnized in numerous books written in a "war and society" vein. While war and society studies may have opened the door to the profession at large, the price of grudging and partial approval has been the acceptance of an agenda dictated by those with little interest in the military per se. A related trend that has won ground for military history of the ancien regime is the debate over a Military Revolution in early modern Europe. This began with the publication of an inaugural lecture by Michael Roberts in 1956 and accelerated with the publication in 1988 of Geoffrey Parker's The Military Revolution:

Xll

PREFACE

Military innovation and the rise of the West, isoo-1800. While this historio-

graphical discussion has stimulated a great deal of new work, it has hurried on to sweeping conclusions before mastering the details. In their rush, scholars have again passed by the army of the grand siecle without giving it much of a second glance. Clearly the theory of the Military Revolution cries out for a study of the greatest of the seventeenth-century armies, but it has yet to appear. HISTORIOGRAPHICAL

LIMITATIONS

This account of why the army of the grand siecle has remained largely invisible does not mean that it received no attention. But the treatments devoted to it have been brief or narrowly conceived, and they have fragmented the subject by time and focus. Sections of major surveys describe the hidden form. In Hanoteau's massive Histoire de la nationfrangaise(1925), Francois Reboul spent 130 pages on ules armees dugrandsiecle" and in the first tome of the new Histoire militaire de France (1991), Andre Corvisier and Anne Blanchard between them wrote 180 pages on the period from 1598 to 1715. Both of these general coverages are typical of their eras, the first emphasizing the nuts and bolts of military technology and organization while detailing specific campaigns, and the second more driven by the modern French preoccupation with the social details of military institutions. But while they differ profoundly, they share the same brevity. To these overviews must be added a few rare and dated classic studies with narrower focuses. Here, biographies have dominated, and those of Louvois and Le Tellier say a great deal about the state of scholarship on the army. Camille Rousset's four-volume Histoire de Louvois provides a detailed account of that famous war minister, an account unequaled by any subsequent work; Corvisier's more recent Louvois (1983) can be best regarded as a readable abridgment of Rousset. Scholars still must use the Histoire de Louvois as their best source, yet it was published in 1862-64. What other field of history would attract so little modern work that historians must still constantly appeal to a study well over a century old? Much the same is true for Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et ^organisation de Varmee monarchique^ a cru-

cial piece of scholarship that appeared in 1906. To these biographies must be added lives of major military commanders, such as Conde, Turenne, Vauban, and Villars. Two brief descriptions of the French army at particular moments also provide points of reference, the short volume by Victor Belhomme, Uarme'efrancaiseen 1690, and H. Pichafs article, "Les Armees de Louis XIV en 1674," but again, regardless of their merits, these efforts, both by professional military officers, date back to 1895 and 1910, respectively. The dates tell the story; the historiography of the army has grown weak with old age. With few exceptions, modern "war and society55 additions have been too narrow, esoteric, or tangential to reinvigorate the subject as a whole. If scholarship on the army suffers from being both sparse and aged, it is

PREFACE

Xlll

also disjointed. The seventeenth-century brought constant and important evolution in military institutions and practices, but attempts to study this change only through examinations that deal with it during a short time span distort its coherent and often gradual nature. Perhaps such distortion comes as a nearly unavoidable byproduct of the emphasis on biographies, since such works try to encompass a major subject within the decades of an individual's active life. Biography not only encapsulates history; the biographer tends to champion his or her subject. This is certainly the case for studies of Le Tellier and Louvois, and the same can be said for treatments of French affairs under the Richelieu administration. Such segmented approaches, instead of dealing with the military in a more continuous fashion, worry too much about which minister deserves the prize as the most important innovator. Recently, a few historians have turned to the army as a subject of study once again, yet while they have supplied more pieces to the puzzle, they have yet to assemble the whole. David Parrott's dissertation, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," while superb, only covers the years 1635-37 in detail. A conference held in 1985, "La presence de la guerre au XVTIe siecle," and a two-volume set, Guerre et paix dans PEurope du XVIIe siecle (1991), may mark something of a renaissance in the subject. Doubtless, the efforts of Corvisier, Blanchard, and others have been admirable, but they are limited by a desire to deal with the military past in a way acceptable to current fashions in historical scholarship. Attempts to deal with the army within the parameters of contemporary historiographical themes most often stress the army exclusively as a social institution and neglect or even deny its essence. Ultimately, armies are for fighting, and they define themselves in combat and in preparation for combat. But in his discussion of French military history between 1598 and 1715, in Histoire militaire de France, Andre Corvisier devotes only 5 of his 140 pages to weapons and tactics, a subject that will take up several chapters here. He and other current historians seem fascinated by such questions as the Invalides and prisoners of war, topics that are marvelously off the point most of the time, since pensioners and prisoners have ceased to be involved in the primary combat duties of the army. It may be part of the soldier's life, but it is not the "military experience" but the military itself that most needs attention. There is no question that old-line military historians gave too little concern to the common soldier, and if the field is to heed John Keegan's challenge to paint the true face of battle, it must become more inclusive. But modern treatments of military institutions seem to err in the other direction. Another problem associated with current studies of the army is that they stress the impact of war - both the human cost of conflict and the influence of war on state formation - without coming to grips with the institutions of warfare. As always, dealing immediately with consequence without adequate knowledge of process can result in error. This is particularly obvious in discussions of state formation, the most exciting and promising line of inquiry intertwined with the history of war and armies. Studies with this focus too

XIV

PREFACE

often base their conclusions about the origins and nature of Bourbon absolutism on an imperfect understanding of the army of the grand siecle. In a typical example, the generally fine book Bruce D. Porter's, War and the rise of the state (1994), is at its weakest when discussing the France of Louis XIV. In this case, the fault lies not so much with the author, who tried to use the best available scholarship, as with that scholarship itself, which is outdated and limited. It is hard not to agree with David Kaiser, another student of state formation, who complains, £Cwe lack any really systematic studies of [Louis XIV's] armies.5'2 T H E A P P R O A C H A N D G O A L S OF THIS VOLUME In Giant of the Grand Siecle, I hope to provide that needed systematic study. This volume accepts the army of the grand siecle as the main player of the piece, not as a minor character hovering in the background. Placing the army in the preeminent role does not reflect a moral judgment, for the army will be alternately hero and villain; instead it results from a recognition of the military's great importance. In order to reveal the army's outline and character as never before, this volume examines a broad range of material over an extended period of time. Only a comprehensive method that explores the subject in both its breadth and depth can expose interrelationships and trace developments - the classic issues of continuity and change. While this is the fundamental goal, it feeds into other purposes. Once achieved, an understanding of interrelationships and developments redefines the part played by the army in grander historical dramas. Failure to consider different levels of military institutions in a single study has led to misconceptions even by the finest scholars. For example, historians and political scientists who concern themselves with state formation posit a direct one-to-one relationship between military expansion and bureaucratization and centralization; it seems reasonable because larger armies must have required that the central government collect and disburse more resources to support those forces. But this fundamental assumption fares badly in these pages, where it will be demonstrated that the army was not financed and administered from the center of power alone. The army also drew heavily upon provincial sources of funding and, consequently, answered to institutions and personnel based in the provinces, not in Paris. In addition, individual field armies provided their own logistical systems, usually through private contractors, and collected money and goods for their own needs on campaign. Furthermore, at the lowest level, regimental officers, notably colonels and captains, contributed their own wealth and credit to the maintenance of their units and carried out many supply and support functions that today 2

David Kaiser, Politics and War (Cambridge, MA: 1990), 153.

PREFACE

XV

would fall to a central administration. With four different levels of finance and control, the relationship between army growth and state formation is far more complex and diffuse than current scholarship realizes. Seeing things over too short a time period can be as damaging as trying to limit the range of institutions and practices considered. In his classic, and generally excellent, study of Le Tellier as secretary of state for war, Louis Andre credits Le Tellier with turning away from private contractors for logistical support and providing instead "direct service by the state."3 But Andre could only claim this because he did not look further than the career of Le Tellier. Later, under Louis XIV, supply by private contractors, munitionnaires, again became the rule. What Andre described as a forward-looking innovation was, it will be seen, only a catch-as-catch-can response to a financial breakdown that forced contractors to abandon the army. Only in taking the long view can the contribution of each minister be set in its proper place. More careful examination reveals not an administrative revolution at any one point, but a steady evolution in administrative practice and power from the early seventeenth century into the 1690s at least. Weighing change and continuity in the army of the grand siecle interjects this book into the historiographical discussion of the Military Revolution. At times, this theoretical debate turns into a search for some magic technology that transformed war and armies. For Geoffrey Parker, it is the trace italienne fortress, while Jeremy Black emphasizes the introduction of the bayonet that relegated the pike to the status of an historical relic. This volume rejects both assertions and others in favor of an evolutionary path not driven by technological innovation but by conceptual and institutional development. By covering so much territory through an inclusive and integrated approach, this book not only describes the army of the grand siecle and contributes to present-day scholarly dialogue, but it can provide a starting point for other studies. Perhaps it can serve as both an encyclopedia of detail and as a baseline of interpretation. If so, these pages could be of value for investigations yet to be conceived and debates yet to be joined. To fulfill its promise of revealing the features of the giant to all, this volume must serve a variety of readers, from French historians knowledgeable about the chronology, personalities, and institutions of the grand siecle, to military specialists less well informed about these matters but steeped in the details of military technology, tactics, and practices. To explain the subject to one audience requires supplying information already familiar to another. Each individual reader ought to bear in mind this need to cover what he or she may regard as assumed. By the same token, an expert in a particular field of study may desire more discussion on that area than this volume presents, but because the volume takes on a wide spectrum of time and material, 3

Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et ^organisation de Varmee monarchique (Paris: 1906), 434. In a later work, Michel Le Tellier et Louvois (Paris: 1942), Andre did consider a broader time span, but his first book is still the classic.

XVI

PREFACE

it cannot examine each topic in all its complexity. The importance of the subject requires that this work reach out to different audiences and that it be cast in broad terms, and the benefits of this approach more than compensate for any shortcomings it entails. SKETCHING THE

IMAGE

Before beginning the long and complicated task of painting a full portrait of the giant, a brief sketch of his features can serve as a guide. Begin with the four most prominent features of the subject: the transition in army style from aggregate contract to state commission, the tremendous growth of the army, the limitations put on performance and policy by financial constraints, and the evolutionary character of military change other than army expansion. The French army, particularly its infantry, had once been an aggregate of temporary mercenary units and private forces raised by grandees, but by the mid-i6oos, it had become the province of the king alone, a royal instrument with a large permanent establishment directly commanded by the monarch. This new style of army then expanded to unprecedented size. When France entered the Thirty Years' War, the army swelled to proportions too large for the state to support and control, and troops became predatory on French society. Later growth during the personal reign of Louis XIV did not cause such turmoil, but in a financial sense, the Bourbon state never grew into its army. As a consequence, administration and supply were conducted in ways that most conveniently, though often inefficiently, mobilized credit. The need to turn to financial expedients hamstrung administrative reform. Lack of adequate funding and the multi-tiered form of administration explains the evolutionary pace of administrative reform while army growth made revolutionary leaps. Even in this environment, however, military administration made great strides in regularizing the supply of food, clothing, equipment, and armament as never before. The officer corps reflected a unique culture of command based upon aristocratic values that attracted young nobles to the service but limited the professionalization of the army. On the regimental and company level, Louvois encouraged practices and institutions designed to increase the competence of officers, but his efforts ran afoul of the need to commission rich men because their wealth and credit were required for the proper maintenance of their units. Once again the financial straits of the government set limits to the extent of reform. However, Louis XIV was able to curb the arrogant independence of his generals through such measures as the ordre de tableau, which established seniority as the principle. Men from the lower reaches of society supplied the rank and file, who shared little in common with their aristocratic officers. Common soldiers were not expected to display great commitment or initiative, although the promise of better care for the wounded and veterans was designed to bind the soldier more to the state and to encourage enlistments. Ostensibly voluntary

PREFACE

XV11

enlistment provided most of the recruits; however, recruiters often employed deceit and violence to fill their quotas. The need for manpower in the last two of Louis's wars inspired the creation of a provincial militia system to conscript men into the ranks. This device was not meant and did not operate as a replacement for voluntary enlistment; instead it was an expedient required to build an army larger than could have been assembled through traditional means. Tactically, the French did not experience a radical Military Revolution during thcjjrand siecle. To a large degree, tactics changed only incrementally because they rested upon unaltering assumptions concerning the limited reliability of the rank and file. Infantry armament and tactics altered as the French integrated Dutch and Swedish advances and, most importantly, adopted drill. Fusils gradually replaced muskets, while pikes gave ground before firearms until the bayonet eliminated the pike altogether. Cavalry weapons and practices remained remarkably stable throughout the century. Artillery also changed surprisingly little, although it had the chance to benefit from important improvements in cannon design. At midcentury, the French represented the highest levels of tactical competence, but by the War of the Spanish Succession, they had probably slipped behind the English and the Dutch. Operationally, the French came to avoid battle and embrace siege warfare. The seventeenth century brought a conception of battle as a test of will and order, in which it seemed more important to absorb casualties without breaking than it was to inflict losses on the enemy. This style of forbearance in combat emphasized the costly nature of battle, and this, combined with the indecisive character of most combat in the field, led Louis, his advisors, and his generals to prefer siege operations. Thanks to the genius and energy of Vauban, the French mastered fortress construction and siege warfare as did no other power in Europe. Fortifications and siege warfare also became so important because fortresses controlled territory that could be exploited for money and material while fortifications denied these resources to the enemy. Thus, the fact that the state never mastered the ability to pay for its own army underlay operational and strategic decisions. The state's own flaws tethered the giant. In one sense, it is surprising that a volume like this has taken so long to appear, yet in another, this may be a book too soon. The effort is both necessary and necessarily incomplete: necessary because the topic is too important to remain without a general overview, and necessarily incomplete because so few detailed studies exist to supply the basis for synthesis. The highest goal of such an undertaking is not simply to spread knowledge, but rather to convince others of the value of the topic and the need for further work. Ultimately, if this book is successful, it will stimulate the studies that will make it obsolete in the future. It is scholarship on a suicide mission.

Acknowledgments

O

VER the several years that this project has consumed, many organizations and individuals have aided me in my work. Research for this project was made possible by a N.E.H. Summer Stipend, a Hewlett Summer Research Stipend, and grants from the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Research Board at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am also indebted to my colleagues for a one-year appointment to the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois, which allowed me an all-important unobstructed year to pursue research and writing on this volume. Publication of Giant of the Grand Siecle has been aided by a subvention to the press granted by the Research Board of my university. Parts of this volume have appeared as journal articles or as chapters. Much of Chapter 2 appeared in French Historical Studies as "Recalculating French Army Growth During the Grand siecle, 1610-1715," and the majority of Chapter 6 first saw light in the Journal ofModern History as "How War Fed War: The Tax of Violence and Contributions During the grand siecle" Chapters 14 and 15 make use of material and text that first appeared in "Tactical Evolution in the French Army, 1560-1660," published in French Historical Studies. Important sections of Chapter 16 come from "The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies: the French Case,5' from the Journal of Military History and "Food, Funds, and Fortresses: Resource Mobilization and Positional Warfare in the Campaigns of Louis XTV," an essay in my Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present. Clinton Grubbs, Jeff McKeage, George Satterfield, Brian Sandberg, David Stewart, and Ed Tenace ably served as my research assistants. Other of my graduate students at Illinois and at my second campus, The Ohio State University, have helped me with their comments and questions; I thank them all, most importantly Roy McCullough and William Reger. I owe thanks to Douglas Baxter, Ron Martin, and James B. Wood for providing me with valuable research materials and to Charles Tilly and Paul Sonnino xix

XX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

for reading drafts of various chapters. My very dear friend Frederic C. Jaher has put in hours of labor editing this entire volume, sacrifice well beyond the call of duty. He has saved me from myself time and again. Geoffrey Parker, once my colleague at the University of Illinois, served as friend and foil to my ideas and plans. While we have not always agreed on details or interpretations, he both encouraged my efforts and helped me secure funding for them. And I must thank the readers for Cambridge University Press, Jeremy Black and, especially, Frank Tallett, for their comments and suggestions, which have made this a better volume. Lastly, once again I am in debt to my wife, Andrea E. Lynn, who has supported me and my work with her usual blend of personal grace and editorial talent.

PART ONE CONTEXT AND PARAMETERS

Contexts of Military Change in the Grand Siecle

p classical facade of Versailles faces the gardens decorated with statues .A. and fountains, traversed by gravel paths. Walking through those gardens, watching the fountains play - if you are lucky enough to be there when they do - and glancing back at the palace, it is hard not to think of Racine and Moliere, Le Vau and Le Notre, or Lully and Charpentier - hard not to be impressed with the glory of the grand siecle. But at the same time, Versailles is too massive, too overwhelming to be graceful. Versailles symbolizes something other than the culture of the grand siecle; it is more about power than about art. Carved trophies of arms with helmets and weapons stand at attention along the roof line, as if to announce that Versailles arose as much from the victories of armies as from the inspiration of architects. The grand siecle, for all its glittering accomplishments, was, at base, a century of war. Considering only the major conflicts that afflicted France, over half of the calendar years from 1610 through 1715 witnessed either interstate or civil war; and if minor conflicts are added in, the proportion rises to three quarters. The primary force of the Bourbons was their army, since except for brief periods the French proved unable or unwilling to maintain a great fleet. The army grew to overshadow all other institutions of the monarchy in size and in appetite. So the record of the seventeenth century remains incomplete without the history of the army; few who walked the paths at Versailles 300 years ago would have disputed that fact. In order to be understood properly, this description of the giant of the grand siecle should be considered in at least four contexts. The first is most theoretical and places French military development on a scale of army evolution for over a millennium. Changes within the army during the seventeenth century ought not to be seen as isolated developments but as part of an important military evolution that affected both France and the rest of Europe. The second context concerns the evolution not of military institutions, but of internal and international conflict during the early modern era, 1495-1815. The grand siecle witnessed a transition in the intensity of warfare;

4

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

Europe endured a horribly destructive series of wars before 1660, but after 1660 the character of warfare moderated to a degree. This moderation both reflected and influenced the evolution of armies. The third necessary context is the narrative of French wars, 1610-1715, that provides the background for all that is discussed in this volume. An account of those conflicts must precede materials presented in the following chapters, for it provides the factual framework of issues, events, and personalities. The fact that French monarchs were unable to pay for this long series of wars not only hamstrung strategy but warped institutional reform; so the fourth context must be fiscal. An understanding of the financial limitations of the Bourbon monarchy is absolutely fundamental to any intelligent discussion of military development during the grand siecle. The army related to financial restrictions both as effect and as cause - effect in that inadequate resource mobilization shaped the army, and cause in that the appetite of war defined the financial needs of the state. THE E V O L U T I O N OF ARMIES,

800-2000

The army of the grand siecle should not be portrayed as static; on the contrary, it carried out one of the fundamental transitions of military history. To appreciate the significance of that transition, the army's institutional development is best considered as part of a long-term evolution in army style across Europe. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to talk of the army of the ancien regime as if it were of one mold from Louis XIII, or at least from Louis XIV, through Louis XVT, changing little more than did the name of the king - the army of the Louis's. However, the army evolved a great deal over the course of the grand siecle, and this volume concerns itself, more than anything else, with that change. Once the new French pattern emerged, its influence extended beyond the borders of France, for when victory crowned the Bourbon army as the preeminent force on the continent, it became a new model of military organization and administration throughout Europe. Recently the nature of military change in early modern Europe has attracted a great deal of attention from historians. Their efforts usually center around some attempt to define a Military Revolution, commonly placing all or part of it in the seventeenth century. Michael Roberts began this quest with a provocative essay forty years ago, and the debate has picked up in recent years, thanks largely to the work of Geoffrey Parker, who recasts the span of his Military Revolution to include three centuries, 1500-1800.1 1

Important works on the Military Revolution include the following: Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560-1660 (Belfast: 1956); George Clark, War and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: 1958); Geoffrey Parker, "The 'Military Revolution' 1560-1660 - a Myth?" Journal ofModern History 48 (June 1976) and The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, isoo-1800 (Cambridge: 1988). For criticisms of the Roberts and Parker formulations of the theory, see Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: 1991) and European Warfare, 1660-181S

CONTEXTS

OF MILITARY

CHANGE

5

Theories of a Military Revolution posit a radical change, or a series of radical changes, driven by innovations in weapons technology and tactics, although other factors are also given emphasis from time to time. Parker, for example, lays great stress on sixteenth-century artillery and advances in fortification that yielded a new style, the trace italienne^ designed to counter cannon in siege warfare. For a number of reasons, the existing theories of a single or multiple revolutions leave something to be desired. They seem to assume that military development works by great sea changes rather than by more incremental innovations. In addition, the emphasis on technology stresses hardware over conceptions of warfare and other less tangible factors that probably exerted stronger influences over early modern military institutions. Lastly, current theories tend to isolate the early modern experience from the rest of military history. Without entirely rejecting Roberts's or Parker's visions of change, this volume accepts an alternative theory of the evolution of armies. 2 It separates the flow of European military history into seven periods defined not by military technology, periods of warfare, or great military personalities but by army style. Sketched in only its most basic outlines, the theory hypothesizes that European armies, and, for the purposes of this work specifically the French, experienced seven stages of evolution since the eighth century A.D. The breaks between one period and the next were neither instant nor absolute. Each stage retained something of the earlier style, and the key elements of the next type of army appeared in rudimentary form before they prevailed; therefore, the process was more evolutionary than revolutionary. Essential elements of army style include recruitment, remuneration, motivation, organization, command, and relationship to society and government. Technology, tactics, and training are also involved, but more as secondary factors. Judged by these criteria, Western armies have passed through seven evolutionary stages since about A.D. 800: feudal, medieval stipendiary, aggregate contract, state commission, popular conscript, mass reserve, and volunteer technical. Feudal armies were raised by calling up aristocratic landowners who held their property in exchange for a defined term of annual military service, while towns also supported their lords by assembling urban militia. Peasants could also be summoned in accord with older practices that levied all able-bodied men, although the peasantry rarely possessed formidable military skill. Feudalism in France dates from the mid-eighth century, and it spread slowly in France and throughout western Europe. England was not feudalized until

2

(New Haven, CT: 1994), and John A. Lynn, "The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies: the French Case," Journal ofMilitary History, July 1991, 297-330. For a collection of essays on the subject, see Cliff Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder, CO: 1995). See John A. Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West, 800-2000," International History Review 18, no. 3 (August 1996), for a discussion of this evolutionary taxonomy.

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the conquest by William, and some areas such as the forests and mountains of Switzerland were never thoroughly feudalized. Since warriors could return home after fulfilling a set obligation, often forty days, an army assembled from feudal contingents had the drawback that it could only undertake limited campaigns. Staggering the call-up of feudal levies could mitigate this problem, but it also limited the number of combatants that were in the field at any one time. In addition, the political independence of major lords and even of their lesser vassals made it advantageous to seek an alternative kind of military force. As early as the twelfth century, a burgeoning money economy, the willingness of feudal contingents to pay money in lieu of actual service, and increased resources in the hands of princes allowed them to hire soldiers either as the core of their armies or as entire forces. Thus, the English during the Hundred Years' War raised professional, paid armies to fight in France. Such medieval stipendiary armies often contained the same kind of men who would have served the king in the older feudal forces, for example, nobles who fought now for pay, booty, and out of a sense of adventure. Many of the older loyalties for the king or other war leader still held, but the commitment to service rested on money payment. At this time, infantry became a more important contingent of European armies as English longbowmen, Gascon crossbowmen, Flemish pikemen, and others hired on. Medieval stipendiary armies could still contain large feudal contingents, particularly when a prince fought on his own lands where he could summon his nobility at the height of a campaign, as did the French during the Hundred Years' War. The difficulty of using feudal levies far from home, the excellence of paid professional troops, and the growing wealth of European monarchs encouraged them to rely even more on professional mercenaries. In the case of the French monarchy, such mercenaries were not usually subjects of the king, but Swiss, German, Italian, and others. The tendency for French monarchs to rely most heavily upon infantry hired abroad began no later than the reign of Louis XI, who showed a taste for Swiss infantry that would last for centuries. Although the French generally favored their own cavalry, in the Wars of Religion they also hired German horsemen. Armies during the late fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries were assembled for particular campaigns from a combination of native French units, foreign mercenary bands, and the private armies of major nobles who offered their services in exchange for money or favor. Thus, armies were aggregate in character and built around a core of troops raised by contract, hence the term aggregate contract army.

Princes concluded the contracts in question not with individual soldiers but with the leaders of soldier bands, epitomized by the military entrepreneurs who supplied foreign troops. Units hired in this fashion were "off the shelf," arriving already armed, trained, and organized for battle, with their own officers. When the princely paymaster had no need of them any more, they were simply paid off and put back on the shelf until needed again. There

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was little need to maintain such expensive troops over the winter, in lulls during wartime, and certainly not between wars. As a result, armies regularly hit peak size, fought a major engagement, and quickly shrank to much smaller proportions. There was little need to maintain a large peacetime force, since the major occupation of that force was simply to garrison a few key fortresses and police the roads. Consider, for example, Francois Fs use of an aggregate contract army in the war that began in 1542. After a series of inconclusive campaigns, the struggle climaxed in a double invasion of France in 1544; an English army under Henry VIII besieged and took Boulogne but did little else, while the main threat came from Charles V, who led an army into eastern France in the late spring. Francois reacted by contracting for as many as 16,000 Swiss in July, what seems like the last moment, and yet they arrived in time to form the heart of his main army at the camp de Jalons in late August.3 The desire to create French units that mobilized as rapidly as did hired Swiss and Germans may explain Francois's attempts to create native infantry "legions5' with the same off-the-shelf character. However, the quality of the foreign mercenaries was much higher than the far less professional French, and the reliance on foreign infantry remained throughout the sixteenth century. The next stage in army evolution, labeled as the state commission army, emerged in the seventeenth century. Henri IV's plans for mobilization in 1610 still relied heavily upon German and Swiss mercenary units, and during the minor wars of the period 1611-34, Louis XIII repeatedly enlisted the support of private armies raised by trusted aristocratic supporters, such as the duke d'Epernon, eager to gain royal favor. The rationale behind such aggregate practices remained the need to create a field army quickly without maintaining a large and expensive peacetime force in being. But at the start of the war with Spain in 1635, Louis XIII decided not to turn to private French forces anymore, and the days of contract armies drew to an end, with one important exception. Richelieu purchased the services of the entire army led by Bernard of Saxe-Weimar in 1635; the French renewed the agreement with his remaining officers in 1639 after Bernard's death and simply appointed a Frenchman to command in his stead. Aggregate contract armies had produced forces with good technical skill but suspect loyalty. The requirement for even higher levels of technical expertise, the need for far larger armies, and the desire of monarchs to maintain peacetime forces for military and political reasons led to the state commission army. The transition from aggregate contract to state commission armies required a change in attitudes and expectations concerning mobilization for war. The former could be assembled very rapidly; the latter took some time to come on line and essentially required a larger standing army to provide the core around which to build the wartime force. The king now issued 3

See the discussion of the 1544 campaign in Ferdinand Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs des arme'es franpaises des Guerres dltalie aux Guerres de Bxligion, 1494-1S62 (Paris: 1962), 87-114.

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commissions to officers, primarily French officers, to raise and train regiments in the king's name in accord with royal ordonnances. Unlike the independent contractors of before, the new units were to be the king's troops, loyal only to him. The regiments that the king commissioned remained in being for extended periods, either throughout a war or even during peacetime. Long-term army expenses probably increased, but the military and political benefits were worth it. The political advantages of this system were at least threefold: the greater loyalty of the army, liberation from dependency on private armies raised by nobles, and the creation of a standing army.4 At this time, the French army expanded immensely. An army that hit a theoretical, or paper, high of 80,000 in the sixteenth century reached about 200,000 in the 1630s and expanded even further to about 280,000 in the Dutch War and 420,000 in the Nine Years' War, again as paper strengths. The state commission army also entailed a large peacetime standing army, which grew even more dramatically than wartime forces over the course of the seventeenth century, hitting 165,000 in the 1680s. Jean Meyer, who has touched on this evolution, characterizes the sixteenth-century form of what I call here the aggregate contract army as one in which the actual field force had to be assembled from scratch at the start of each war, because the very small peacetime contingent was completely subsumed by the wartime entity. The state commission army, which Meyer terms an armee royalise\ was only made possible by a tremendous growth of the peacetime army that could then serve as a basis for expansion once a conflict had begun. This peacetime force was royalise because it was ingrained with discipline and commanded by an officer corps loyal to the king. For Meyer, this also required the nationalization of the army through recruiting the king's own subjects and the "renobilization" of the officer corps by relying upon the royalty's own aristocracy rather than upon foreign entrepreneurs.5 While providing the state with a base for wartime force expansion and a tool for internal coercion, the standing army also stimulated rudimentary military planning. States now needed to make intelligent decisions as to where to station peacetime military forces, and this implied evaluating that state's internal security, its potential enemies, and its future international goals. To attain the large proportions that the army reached in the seventeenth century required mobilizing every available source of reliable manpower. This explains why foreign units still served in the French army, but they were recruited and trained in the same manner as French units, rather than arriving off-the-shelf. Under Louvois's direction, the French also began to conscript their own peasantry for service in the royal army in 1688, and this practice was resurrected in a somewhat different form in 1701. Conscription never provided the bulk of the army under the cmcien regime, but it topped 4

5

I must thank my graduate student Brian Sandberg for his contributions through our many discussions on the nature of aggregate contract and state commission armies. Jean Meyer, "T)e la guerre' au XVTIe siecle," XVII siecle, 37 (1985), 278-79.

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off the volunteer recruitment that supplied most new soldiers. The expanded officer corps provided many posts for a nobility willing, even anxious, to serve in the new army. The monarchy required that these new commissioned officers perform as disciplined servants of the king and established a strict hierarchy even for its general officers. This subordination can be credited to Louvois above all, but it was not simply his work. This volume mainly tells the story of the way in which the French created the archetypal state commission army, which then became the paradigm for other European land forces. It is not a static story, but one of transition. Nor is it a story of continual French military preeminence, because once the French created the form, they became too set in their ways, and other European forces first met and then surpassed the French in certain important respects. Looking past the death of Louis XIV, the state commission army remained the pattern until the French Revolution ushered in the form termed here the popular conscript army. Conscription which had appeared in the seventeenth century as an ancillary form of recruitment became the norm, first in the levee en masse of 1793, but more lastingly through the Jourdan Law of 1798, which set up a regular system of yearly conscription that set the pattern for Europe west of Russia. All soldiers were expected to be loyal to the nation, whereas only personal loyalty to the king was expected before. As it evolved after 1815, the popular conscript army did not place primary emphasis upon reserves, although the Prussians did better with their reserves than did any other power in Europe. The late nineteenth century brought still a different kind offeree, the mass reserve army^ which relied heavily upon reserve components. N o longer the armee de metier of the period 1815-70, the peacetime army became a training institution meant to produce numerous reserves that could be mobilized in the first weeks of a major war. While defeat in the Franco-Prussian War drove the French to military reform, they did not adopt the mass reserve army until the 1880s. Huge mass reserve armies of Europe squared off against one another at the start of World War I and World War II. The postwar world has seen the mass reserve army give way to a final form, the volunteer technical army^ for both political and military reasons. While European states, most notably France and Germany, supplied the paradigms for the previous army styles, the United States serves as the model for this last stage. Politically, the use of conscript armies in postcolonial wars has proven too costly, as it did for the United States in Vietnam. To American problems in South East Asia should be added the American preference for high-tech weaponry, which though very lethal requires an advanced level of competence to maintain and employ. The result is that a smaller number of self-selected, highly motivated, and highly trained volunteers form a politically more useful and militarily more effective force. With the end of the Cold War, the expenses of maintaining large forces that no longer seem to be necessary will in all likelihood drive other major powers to follow the U.S. example. But this is getting far beyond the story of the grand siecle.

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T R A N S I T I O N S IN THE I N T E N S I T Y E U R O P E A N W A R S , 1495-1815

OF

If the French army evolved over the course of the grand siecle ^ so did the intensity of warfare that abated somewhat midway through the seventeenth century. Generations of military historians have claimed that an age of limited warfare lay between the Thirty Years' War and the Wars of the French Revolution, and no historian laid more emphasis on this notion than did John U. Nef in his classic War and Human Progress. "For Western Europe as a whole, years of war were still the rule, years of peace the exception. Yet there was more or less continuous moderation in the fierceness of the fighting."6 The contention is that after a period of warfare typified by irrational, primarily religious, motivations and fought with little constraint against enemy soldiers and unfortunate civilians alike, war became more rational in its goals and more humane in its conduct. As religion ceased to be a primary motivation, war became more a question of dynastic politics, and regimes fought not to destroy one another but simply for limited territorial or economic gain. At the same time, better military administration relieved the pressures that drove soldiers to prey on towns and villages just to survive, and laws of war regulated the conduct of armies toward civilians. Of course, there were exceptions to the rule, and from time to time armies committed terrible excesses, but in the main, wars became more reasonable in their goals and conduct. From its earliest formulations, this concept has been attacked. In the European context, critics point to the assault on Prussia during the Seven Years' War, 1756-63, as one designed to eliminate Prussia, not simply to defeat it. And certainly Frederick the Great had to respond by mobilizing his state as completely as he could to fight off the Austrians and the Russians. In addition, warfare along the southern frontier of Hapsburg lands retained its religious dimension and victimized civilians on both sides. Here it is less important to render a verdict for all of Europe than simply to judge if the period 1610-1715 witnessed a significant shift in the nature and intensity of warfare for France. The historian Jean Meyer goes so far as to talk about a transformation from guerre Male during the Thirty Years' War and the war with Spain to guerre controlee during the wars of Louis XIV.7 For Meyer and also for Andre Corvisier, when Louis XIV seized the reins of government in 1661, he ushered in an era of limited warfare that stretched until the French Revolution again redefined warfare at the close of the eighteenth century. This characterization of warfare in the grand siecle cannot be accepted without comment and qualification. French wars changed in intensity but not in some simple sense of moving 6

7

John U. Nef, War and Human Progress (Cambridge, MA: 1950), 155. The period he is discussing is 1640-1740 in a chapter entitled, "Less Blood and More Money." Meyer, "T)e la guerre' au XVTIe siecle," 278.

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Table 1.1. France at war, 1495-1815."

Period 1495-1559 1560-1610 1611-60 1661-1715 1716-88 1789-1815

Total years

War years

Interstate war years

Internal war years

65 51 50 55 73 27

50 (76.9%) 33 (64.7%) 41 (82.0%) 36 (65.5%) 31 (42.5%) 23 (85.2%)

48 (73.8%) 17 (33.3%) 30 (60.0%) 36 (65.5%) 31 (42.5%) 23 (85.2%)

3 (4.6%) 28 (54.9%) 21 (42.0%) 6 (10.9%) 0 (0%) 4 (14.8%)

fl

In this table, if a war consumed any part of a given year, it is counted as a war year; thus, the Nine Years' War, 1688-97, is calculated here as involving ten years.

from "total war" to "controlled war." In order to judge a transformation in warfare during the grand siede^ the periods that preceded and followed it need to be included in the picture; this means considering certain parameters of war from 1495 to 1815, an era that can be subdivided into six different periods of conflict from the French perspective. The parameters of war deserving of note include the number of years that knew war, the extent to which France had to fight its interstate wars on its own territory, and the degree of internal or civil conflict that afflicted the state. Table 1.1 presents the six periods of warfare, 1495-1815, and the percentages of war years and the percentage of internal or civil war years in each. The most cursory examination suggests that measured by the number of calendar years in which interstate war occurred, the period 1661-1715 had more in common with the eras that preceded it than it did with the remaining years of the ancien regime^ but more needs to be said. During the Italian Wars, 1495-1559, the Valois kings undertook wars against foreign enemies during three quarters of the years involved, and while the years after 1542 witnessed several incursions into French territory, the lion's share of the wars were fought outside France in Italy. In addition, the Valois were bothered by little internal rebellion. The era 1560-1610 encompassed the French Wars of Religion; while interstate conflicts were significant, internal and civil war dominated, as over half the calendar years involved such conflicts, and virtually all French warfare was visited upon French territory itself, with the attendant political, economic, and human costs. The major fighting in the first half of the grand siecle shared some important similarities with the Wars of Religion. First, internal conflict still played a very great role, since 42 percent of the years witnessed some form of internal war. Second, even during the great interstate conflict with the Empire and Spain, a great many of the campaigns took place on French soil. This internal mayhem climaxed in the years of the Fronde, which combined interstate and civil war in a deadly mixture.

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In comparison to the periods 1560-1610 and 1611-60, the wars of Louis XIV were less disastrous. First, while Louis engaged in long interstate conflicts, these wars were primarily fought across French frontiers or right at the borders. Certainly some invasions did occur, particularly those that Alsace suffered during the Dutch War, but they never penetrated far and never threatened the heart of France. Second, the forces of the French king, which had behaved so rapaciously toward his own subjects during the long struggle with Spain, now showed much greater discipline when on French soil. Third and last, little internal rebellion threatened Louis; the most obvious cases came in Bordeaux and Brittany, 1675, and in the Cevennes, 1702-4, but they struck only the peripheries of France, and the first involved little fighting. Jean Meyer concludes, "This war however, was no longer, after 1660, total war: it was war harnessed \_ammagie\ rendered supportable for states, for participants, and populations."8 But he goes too far. Calculating the extent, intensity, and expense of interstate war changes the picture. Louis spent 65.5 percent of the years after 1661 at war, and late in his reign, 1688-1715, only a few years did not know armed struggles. Moreover, his wars were great conflicts, mobilizing huge armies for long periods of time. These characteristics make his wars look much less limited, since they resembled those that preceded them more than those that followed. After one considers the martial character of Louis XIV's reign, the period 1716-88 looks quite peaceful. The French engaged in interstate wars on the more modest scale of 42.5 percent of the calendar years. And if two quite minor wars - first, with Spain, 1718-20, and second, the War of the Polish Succession, 1733-38 - are excluded, then the percentage falls to 31.5, less than half that under Louis XIV. In addition, Bourbon dedication to warfare in Europe seemed less than complete, and French borders were never seriously threatened. Certainly the French suffered humiliation during the Seven Years' War, initially at the hands of the Prussians in Germany and then at the hands of the British across the seas in North America and India. However, after 1757, the French failed to mobilize on the scale that they had under Louis XIV. With France never fundamentally at risk, and with the periods between major wars long enough to allow the state and people to recover, war never matched the intensity of the years before 1715. This era truly deserves the title of an age of limited war, since for the French, armed conflict did not really come to them; they literally had to journey from home to find it. Andre Corvisier even suggests that the lessened intensity of warfare, at least, as viewed from the perspective of Paris, fostered the optimism of the Enlightenment.9 That limited quality stands out all the more because it was followed by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which afflicted France with desperate and sometimes glorious conflict continuously from 1792 to 1815, with only two pauses, the first, for a year after the Treaty of Amiens, 1802, 8 9

Meyer, "T)e la guerre' au XVIIe siecle," 286. Andre Corvisier, "Guerre et mentalites au XVIIe siecle," XVII siecle, 37 (1985), 231.

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and the second following Napoleon's abdication in 1814. Then the issues at stake were fundamental, from survival of the new republic to Napoleonic hegemony over Europe. Enemies invaded French territory at the start of the Revolutionary and at the end of the Napoleonic eras, toppling the French government on two occasions. The armed turmoil of the Revolution spawned one of the most costly civil wars of French history in the Vendee, as well as bringing armed revolt to Lyon, Bordeaux, and Toulon. The period 1789-1815 truly deserves Meyer's categorization as "total war." Seen in this perspective, the grand siecle witnessed a transformation in the intensity of warfare, at least for France, but not of the kind usually described. Warfare of the period 1610-60 shared much in common with the century that preceded it in terms of the many years afflicted with war, the rapacious character of the conflicts, the prevalence of campaigns within French borders, and the propensity to major civil war. The period 1661-1715 saw diminished violence within the borders of France because better-paid and betterdisciplined soldiers did not prey on Louis's own subjects, because the success of French arms meant that wars were fought primarily outside his realm, and because France was largely spared internal rebellions. Yet the percentage of years consumed by interstate wars remained relatively the same - 60.0 percent for 1611-60 and 65.5 percent for 1661-1715 - and the burdens of the latter wars were very great indeed. In the next era, 1716-88, the proportion of years spent in interstate warfare declined sharply to only 42.5 percent or less, and the remote sites of those wars, plus the absence of any significant internal rebellion, made it seem a very benign age. In fact, then, it is reasonable to see the grand siecle as part of a movement toward more moderate levels of warfare, from the great internal troubles and terrors of the second half of the sixteenth century, through the very difficult years of the first half of the seventeenth century, followed by the period 1661-1715 with its decreased internal conflict but continued major interstate wars, finally to the internal tranquillity and lessened levels of interstate war of the era after the great king's death. The half-century between 1661 and 1715 did not bring "controlled war," but it constituted an important step in that direction. T H E NARRATIVE OF F R E N C H WARS, 1610-1715

Moderation of war's fury was not accompanied by any decline in number of years consumed by international conflict, at least from the French perspective. The era 1610-1715 was an age of warfare throughout. Richelieu classed war as "an inevitable evil" but "absolutely necessary"; it was, in short, a fact of life.10 If war was inevitable, it was also omnipresent for generation after generation. Warfare did not simply take place on the periphery of life; it shaped French existence during the grand siecle. Of course, this influence was 10

Philippe Contamine, ed., Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 1 (Paris: 1992), 336.

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felt most strongly within the army itself; therefore, the story of Bourbon wars provides context for the institutional development discussed in this volume. The Bourbon monarchy of Louis XIII and Louis XIV confronted a changing constellation of international opponents in a series of wars; during the first half of thcjfrand siecle^ Spain posed the most serious threat to France, but during the second half, an isolated France fought against the maritime powers and the Austrian Hapsburgs. When Louis XIII succeeded his father in 1610, he did not sit securely on his throne. His mother, Marie de Medici, and her corrupt cronies actually held the power for the nine-year-old boy king. Rebellious aristocrats, most notably the prince de Conde, opposed the regent, even taking to arms, and Marie bought them off with money and concessions. Finally, in 1617, Louis seized power from his own mother and her entourage. His accession to real authority did not end internal strife, as a series of "Princes3 Wars" and other rebellions continued to plague France. Beyond these troubles, Louis XIII also inherited the long struggle with the Hapsburgs that had consumed the sixteenth century. Although Europe's most enduring war at the time, the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish and the Dutch, enjoyed a truce at the time that Louis took the throne, the horribly destructive Thirty Years' War soon broke out in Germany in 1618, and when the truce expired in the Low Countries, they too ignited. Louis XIII alone, though a conscientious king and a competent soldier, was not equal to the challenges that faced him, but he possessed a characteristic essential to a successful monarch, the ability to choose extremely able state servants. In 1624, Louis elevated the great Armand du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, to the powerful position offirstminister. Richelieu harbored a strong and lasting desire to increase French prestige by toppling the Spanish. He saw France encircled on her land borders by Hapsburg holdings: Spain to the south, the Spanish Netherlands to the north, and a string of territories belonging to Spain and her allies running from the Netherlands down through Italy, what was known at the time as the Spanish Road, by which reinforcements and funds reached the Spanish armies fighting in the north. In 1625, French troops, in alliance with Venice and Savoy, cut the "road" at the Val Telline pass over the Alps, but Protestant rebellion at home forced the French to retire. The French Protestants, or Huguenots, won the status of a virtual state within a state through the Edict of Nantes in 1598, a compromise peace that awarded the Huguenots certain fortresses and the right to retain military forces of their own. Richelieu understandably believed that the monarchy could not tolerate such independent power within French borders, and the revolt of the Huguenots in 1625 confirmed his worst fears. Louis and Richelieu now conducted a war against Protestant power, a war that culminated in the siege of La Rochelle, 1627-28, which fell despite English aid. Immediately after taking La Rochelle, Louis and Richelieu marched their army to settle affairs in Italy by humbling the duke of Savoy in a brief campaign early in

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1629. Later in the spring of that year, royal arms defeated the Protestants led by the duke de Rohan and imposed the Grace of Alais on the Huguenots. It took from them the right to hold towns, to appoint their own magistrates, and, in short, to function as a separate political authority, but it did guarantee their religious rights, which the Huguenots greeted as an unexpected blessing after such a sound defeat. Richelieu could again focus his attention on the Hapsburg threat and the Thirty Years' War. By paying subsidies to the Protestant champion Gustavus Adolphus, he attempted to fight the Hapsburgs by proxy, 1630-35; however, that great warrior-king died at the battle of Liitzen in 1632, and although his forces were ably led after his death, a Swedish defeat at Nordlingen in 1634 forced the French to enter the war outright. Louis, Richelieu, and the secretaries of state for war - Abel Servien to 1636 and then Sublet de Noyers fielded the largest armies that the French had employed to date. Despite an initial victory, the war soon went badly for France; a Spanish invasion in 1636 threatened Paris and called forth a great French resistance, probably Louis XIIFs finest hour as a soldier. Years of indecisive campaigns followed. Richelieu died in 1642, long before the outcome of the contest was clear. He was succeeded as first minister by the Italian, Guilio, Cardinal Mazarin. Louis XIII did not long survive Richelieu; the king died in 1643, passing the throne to his four-year-old son, Louis XIV. Obviously, this small boy could not rule, and his mother Anne of Austria assumed the regency aided by Cardinal Mazarin. A few days after the death of the old king, the French won a victory of major proportions at Rocroi, where the young duke d'Enghien defeated the Spanish under Melo. Upon the death of his father in 1646, Enghien assumed the title of Louis II, prince of Conde, to go down in history as the Great Conde. Although Rocroi did not settle the issue, Conde and the second great French commander of the day, Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, viscount Turenne, helped to drive the Austrians and Bavarians out of the war by 1648, when the Treaties of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War. These treaties did not conclude the French struggle against Spain or bring internal peace to France. The Fronde rebellion, which struck in 1648 just as war in Germany subsided, weakened the French and thus prolonged the fight with their traditional enemy. What began as a revolt of legal elites composed of aristocratic judges and magistrates centered on the highest courts of France, the parlements^ ended as an affair of the great princes, most notably Conde, who challenged the authority of the queen regent and Mazarin. The antics of the princes and their co-conspirators at times gave the Fronde the air of a bad opera, but the Fronde was a bitter civil war, fought viciously over very real issues of state authority. Rival French armies exposed the heart of France to the kind of ravages that afflicted Germany during the Thirty Years' War. By the end of the Fronde, the unreconciled Conde, whose talent in the field was only exceeded by his pride, served the Spanish. From 1643, Michel Le Tellier held office as secretary of state for war, and he would remain in power for a generation. A man of high administrative

16

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ability, he could not make order out of chaos until the Fronde died down and French armies defeated the Spanish. Final victory came at the battle of the Dunes in 1658, when Turenne, now Louis's premier general, defeated an army under don Juan of Austria, then viceroy of the Spanish Netherlands, and Conde. In 1659, the Peace of the Pyrenees ended this war in French triumph, realized by the addition of Alsace to France and symbolized by Louis's marriage to a Spanish princess. The conflict that began in 1635 and ended with the Peace of the Pyrenees was France's longest war of the century, yet it has no simple title, since although it was part of the Thirty Years' War at the outset, it outlasted that struggle. For convenience here, the war of 1635-59 will simply be called the war with Spain. The return of peace following so many years of conflict brought a new era in French history. Mazarin, after guiding the young king and forming French policy for nearly two decades, died in 1661. At this point, Louis XIV declared that unlike his father he would now be his own first minister. At age 22, Louis truly assumed the royal authority; although he had been king since boyhood, only now did he begin his personal reign, which lasted until his death. Louis XIII's reign and the minority of Louis XIV had been afflicted with civil war and rebellions, but the personal reign of Louis XIV would see only limited internal turmoil; the pattern of great international contests would continue. Louis enjoyed a great military inheritance as he began his personal reign. Even after demobilization, his army remained large and skilled; in Turenne and Conde, now back in French service, he probably had the best field commanders in Europe; and the able Le Tellier directed his war department. Soon Le Tellier would share his office with his equally able but brutal son, the marquis de Louvois, who eventually succeeded his father and held the post of secretary of war until his death in 1691. A young king with a lust for glory would not let such a fine military instrument grow dull from disuse. Louis continually eyed the Spanish inheritance that he believed his wife brought with her. When his father-in-law, King Philip IV of Spain, died in 1665, Louis maneuvered to gain territory from the Spanish Netherlands. The outcome of his machinations was the War of Devolution, 1667-68. Louis entered the war expecting that France's long-time ally against Spain, the United Provinces, would support him. But the Dutch, concluding that a weak Spain was now a safer neighbor than a strong France, formed an alliance with the English and the Swedes and threatened to intervene unless the French withdrew. For this act, Louis never forgave the Dutch. Still, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the War of Devolution, added some important towns to France, notably Lille, so Louis enjoyed limited success. But this would not be enough for him. Louis plotted to chastise the Dutch and continue his acquisition of Spanish lands. He carefully isolated the Dutch from their allies and struck in 1672. This Dutch War, 1672-78, began with an invasion, masterfully supported and supplied by Louvois, which came up through the Bishopric of Liege and

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succeeded in occupying much of the United Provinces south of the Zeidersee. Louis intended to defeat and humble the Dutch so as to force them to give him a free hand in the Spanish Netherlands, but he failed.11 William III of Orange assumed the office of stadthalter and forged alliances with the Spanish, the Austrian Hapsburgs, and several German princes to resist French aggression, so in 1674, Louis reluctantly withdrew his forces from Dutch soil and continued the war in the Spanish Netherlands and along his eastern border. The year 1675 brought a change of guard and a change of policy. While leading an army to defend the borders of Alsace that year, Turenne died when struck by a cannonball, and at the end of the campaign, Conde retired, prematurely aged by decades of campaigning. In the field, Louis relied on less glorious commanders like Humieres, Crequi, Schomberg, and the young duke of Luxembourg. However, he turned to his war minister, Louvois, for primary counsel and to that minister's protege, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, the master of the siege warfare that became ever more important as the years passed. From this point on, Louis, though ready to seize whatever opportunities for gain presented themselves, seemed more intent on constructing defensible frontiers for his beloved lands than on conquering new ones. The Treaty of Nymwegen brought the Dutch War to a close; it awarded Louis the province of Franche-Comte and additional territory along his northern border. Now Louis enjoyed the adulation of his subjects; he was Louis le Grand, the Sun King. The gains at Nymwegen satisfied neither Louis's appetite for territory nor his desire to buttress his frontier. With the encouragement of Louvois, and even with the backing of the usually unaggressive Vauban, Louis claimed valuable defensive positions along his northeast frontier, on the basis that the places claimed were dependencies of lands granted him in past treaties. Although these land-grabs went by the benign name of "Reunions," coercion and violence attended them. In 1681, the French army seized Strasbourg in an impressive and mercifully bloodless operation. But the fortress of Luxembourg would not be taken so peacefully; a blockade of several years culminated in a siege of 1684. The fall of Luxembourg merged into a brief War of the Reunions, 1683-84. The Spanish had been so bullied by France that when Louis's armies came to take more, the Spanish declared war on France in hopes of forcing the Hapsburg emperor to come to their aid. The emperor, however, had his hands full with the Turks, who had nearly taken Vienna in 1683 and had only just been driven away. Isolated, Spain proved unable to parry the French forces that conducted a particularly brutal campaign in the Spanish Netherlands. At the same time, Louis ordered a bombardment of Genoa and threatened an overland attack to punish that city for its support of the Spanish. Brutality paid, but it also lured Louis into further harsh acts that ultimately resulted in a war he really did not want. His short and successful War 11

See Paul Sonnino, Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge: 1989).

18

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of the Reunions ended in the Truce of Ratisbon, which recognized his Reunions, including Strasbourg and Luxembourg, for a period of twenty years. However, as Louis witnessed the success of the Austrian Hapsburgs against the Ottoman Turks, he feared that once the Hapsburgs triumphed they would turn against France, and in this fear he seems to have been correct. In addition, Louis had long enjoyed the support of Cologne, a bishopric that served as an outpost on the Rhine, but when the bishop died and Louis's attempts to put his own candidate in power were blocked, the Sun King resolved upon a short war to win German compliance with his wishes and to see the concessions of Ratisbon recognized as permanent. In September 1688, the French besieged the fortress of Philippsburg, a key fortress on the Rhine frontier of Alsace. Louvois and Louis expected a rapid victory in three or four months, but their actions set off the Nine Years' War, 1688-97. When the German princes did not accede to his demands as he had expected, the French devastated the Palatinate, Baden, and parts of Wiirtemburg in an attempt to make their own frontier more secure from invasion by laying waste the country north and east of it. This act scandalized Europe and aided William III, who had taken the opportunity to seize the English throne while French forces were tied up along the Rhine. Soon he formed the Grand Alliance, including the United Provinces, England, Spain, Savoy, and important German princes, including the emperor. By winning battles at Fleurus, Steinkirke, and Neerwinden, Marshal Luxembourg soon established himself as afieldcommander on a par with Conde and Turenne. So successful was he in capturing enemy battle flags, which then hung as trophies in Paris, that he became known as the tapisier of Notre Dame. But Luxembourg died early in 1695, and no one stepped up to replace him. Although the French did well in the field during the Nine Years' War, the effort ruined them. Louis mobilized an army that reached 420,000 men on paper, and this gargantuan force proved beyond his means to maintain without risking bankruptcy. The war ended in a peace of exhaustion, the Treaty of Ryswick, by which Louis lost much that he had gained since Nymwegen, including the fortress of Luxembourg, although he retained Strasbourg. Louvois administered the army into the Nine Years' War and helped to form the plans for that conflict; however, he died suddenly in 1691. Just as Louvois had succeeded his father, now his son, the marquis de Barbezieux, assumed Louvois's office of secretary of state for war. But while Barbezieux held the office, Louis XIV relied more on personal military advisors, notably the marquis de Chamlay, in policy matters. When Barbezieux went to an early grave in 1701, he was followed in office first by Chamillart, and then in 1709 by Voysin. It is generally conceded that those who served as secretaries of state for war after Louvois did not match his competence and energy, and the army suffered accordingly. The Nine Years' War chastened the proud Sun King, and he made a real effort to avert another armed struggle over the next great crisis, a crisis that all Europe knew was approaching. The ailing and childless king Charles II

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of Spain could not survive much longer, and at his passing, the worldwide inheritance of Spain must pass to one of three rival claimants. The first was archduke Charles, son and heir of the Hapsburg emperor; the second was the heir to the French throne, the dauphin; and the third was a Bavarian prince, then only a boy aged seven. In order to avoid war over the succession, Louis agreed to a partition treaty in 1698 that gave most to the Bavarian candidate and little more than Naples and Sicily to the French candidate. But in 1699, the former died. In reaction, Louis pushed for a new partition treaty that would award Spain and the Indies to the Hapsburg claimant, while giving only Naples, Sicily, and Lorraine to the dauphin. But Carlos II, adamant that his realm not be subdivided, drafted a will giving everything to Philippe d'Anjou, second son of the dauphin and thus unlikely to ever claim the French throne. But if Philippe declined, then everything would be offered to the Hapsburg candidate. When Carlos died in 1700, Louis decided, quite reasonably, to accept the will of Carlos II since the Hapsburgs had never agreed to the second partition treaty in any case. Had Louis moderated at this point, he might have averted a general European war, although a fight with the Hapsburgs seemed inevitable. Unfortunately, Louis reverted to his proud ways by seizing the Spanish Netherlands to secure it for his grandson, demanding special trading privileges for the French in Spanish America, and refusing to give assurances that the French and Spanish realms would never be united under a single monarch. A furious William III assembled another coalition against France, although this time the Spanish under their new Bourbon king, recognized as Philip V, stood with France. The War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-14, proved to be the longest and most exhausting war of Louis's personal reign. The duke of Marlborough, perhaps England's greatest general, led British forces, while prince Eugene of Savoy, an excellent general in his own right, commanded the main Imperial armies. For years, the French could not find a winning commander, and disaster followed disaster. At the battle of Blenheim, 1704, the allied team of generals so devastated the French army before them that the French would not again venture deep into Germany. At the battle of Turin in 1706, Eugene essentially drove the French out of Italy, while Marlborough and Eugene won battles at Ramillies, 1706, and Oudenarde, 1708, that secured the Spanish Netherlands for the Allies. The year 1709 brought with it the greatest famine of the century, but during that year of horrors, Louis finally found a commander who could hold the field against his enemies, Marshal Claude Louis Hector, duke de Villars. In September of that year at the battle of Malplaquet, Villars confronted Marlborough and Eugene. Although the French lost that battle, they retired in good order and inflicted such great casualties that Marlborough would not again face the French in the open field. In fact, Malplaquet remained the bloodiest European battle until the great Napoleonic clashes exceeded its butcher's bill a century later. In 1711, Marlborough lost his command following the fall of the Whigs in England, and the French made a great deal of headway in the last years of the war.

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Villars defeated allied forces at Denain in 1712 and captured a number of cities in the Spanish Netherlands and along the Rhine. In 1713, the French concluded the Treaty of Utrecht with their enemies, except the Empire, which continued the fight until the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden finally ended all fighting in 1714. Louis at last achieved his goal of securing Spain and the Indies for his grandson, although Louis promised that the crowns of France and Spain would never be united. For France proper, the status quo antebellum was restored. Therefore, Louis finally won the War of the Spanish Succession, since Philip sat on the Spanish throne, but the cost for France was unacceptably high. Thus, in brief, runs the history of French wars during thcjjrand siecle. FRENCH

FINANCE

This long series of wars multiplied state expenses far beyond Bourbon ability to pay for them; the result was repeatedfinancialcrisis and eventual collapse. Richelieu commented, "It is always said that finances are the sinews of the state, and it is true that they constitute the fulcrum of Archimedes, which being firmly established provides the means of moving the entire world."12 In no case was that fulcrum more essential than in the pursuit of war, the costliest of all state ventures, but when conducting major struggles, Bourbon absolutism never found secure purchase for itsfinanciallevers. So great was the importance and so crippling the consequences of French state financial weakness that it has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. This section does not attempt to rival the body offinancialhistories already available but rather to reflect them briefly in order to establish that the question of money was indeed one of the most fundamental parameters of military development. The financial demands of maintaining a major conflict always surpassed the resources of the Bourbon treasury. War became vastly more expensive in the seventeenth century. In 1558-59, Henry II spent the equivalent of 210 tons of silver, whereas in 1639, this sum had reached the equivalent of 1,000 tons of silver, afivefoldincrease in real terms, not simply the produce of inflated currency.13 Clearly, warfare constituted the major explanation for the rise in state expenses. After 1598, Henri IV may have balanced the books, and his chieffinancialofficer, the surintendant desfinancesEffiat, insisted that through the 1620s, the French ran only modest annual deficits of 5 million livres. But this shortfall multiplied tenfold in the 1630s.14 Louis XIII thought that he could support war in 1635 by spending only 1 million livres more than it had cost him to subsidize his allies in the conflict, but he was very wrong.15 Although average total government expenses for the six years 1628-33 had 12 13 14 15

Richelieu, Testament politique, ed. Louis Andre (Paris, 1947), 427-48. Contamine, Histoire inilitaire, 1:370. Julian Dent, Crisis in Finance (New York, 1973), 42-43. Richard Bonney, The King's Debts (Oxford: 1981), 169, 307.

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run 51 million livres per year, war nearly doubled them, as annual expenses of the period 1635-40 soared to 90 million.16 Richelieu would have to admit that no state could pay two or three armies at the same time, and once the French committed to war in 1635, they did exactly that. 17 Under Louis XIV, the difference in wartime and peacetime expenses were equally great. Annual expenses for the peacetime period 1662-66 reached 63 million, whereas they ran 103 million during the war years 1672-76. Corvisier, looking at military expenses alone, estimates a 92 percent increase from 1683 to 1691, as the French entered the Nine Years' War. 18 French fiscal resources could not keep up with the demands of warfare, and the result was bankruptcy. Wartime expenses led not only to fiscal crisis but to social turmoil. A frustrated surintendant desfinances,Bullion warned Richelieu in 1639, "Expenditure in cash is up to at least 40 millions, the [creditors] are now abandoning us, and the masses will not pay either the new or the old taxes. We are now at the bottom of the p o t . . . and I fear that our foreign war is degenerating into a civil war."19 His fear was justified. The French suffered a series of tax revolts, particularly before the personal reign of Louis XIV. The rising of the Nu-Pieds in 1639 was particularly notable, and the Fronde itself rated as a rebellion against royal financial exactions. Historians have proposed differing explanations for French fiscal failure. For Julian Dent, it lay in the nature and extent of short-term borrowing at illegally high rates, while for Richard Bonney, the key was the failure to raise revenues effectively.20 But all intelligent explanations put it down more to politics and society than to sheer economics, for France was a rich country. In any case, the way of raising money for state purposes left the monarchy dependent on a financial community that produced capital only at the price of high interest and fiscal corruption. Taxes and Other Revenues The French monarchy raised funds in a variety of manners, involving everything from taxation to the sale of offices to borrowing. Some of these methods seem at first glance to approximate modern, regular, methods, but on closer examination, they were generally inefficient and inadequate. Direct taxation most closely approximated modern state revenue. The most important direct tax was the taille^ which varied from region to region 16

17

18 19

20

Figures taken from Jean Roland de Mallet, Comptes rendus de radministration desfinancesdu royaume de France (London: 1789), 222-23. Mallet corresponds very well with AN, KK 355, "Etat par abrege des recettes et depenses, 1662-1700." David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1985, 39. Andre Corvisier, Louvois (Paris: 1983), 330. 25 October 1639, Bullion to Richelieu, Richelieu, Lettres, 6:608 in Orest Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII (Oxford: 1963), 145. Bonney, The King's Debts, 272.

22

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and took two forms: a tax on real property, the tailk reelk, or on all personal wealth, the tailk personnelk. Pays d'etats and more recently acquired territories generally enjoyed the more moderate and equitable tailk reelk. The Estates General granted the monarchy the right to levy the tailk pretty much at its own discretion in 1439 as a form of war tax to maintain forces meant to bring security back to France late in the Hundred Years' War. In certain important aspects, granting the tailk proved a fatal blow to whatever hope the Estates General might have had to bridle the monarchy, since with this permanent tax the king could raise military forces without turning to the Estates General for support. In provinces under direct administration of the monarchy, the pays d'ekction, officers of the crown "elected," in the sense that they chose, what amount localities were to pay. Pays d'ekction comprised roughly two thirds of France. In other provinces that still guarded their medieval assemblies, the ^ ^ d'etats, these assemblies, or estates, bargained with the monarchy to set the tax rate. In the bargaining process, the pays d'etats fared better than the pays d'ekction. Other direct taxes that went directly to support the army included the taillon, etapes, subsistances, and ustensik. Henri II created the taillon in 1549 to supplement the pay of his troops. Etapes were a further augmentation of the tailk meant to pay for the food and housing of troops on the march. The subsistances, started in 1638, and ustensik were both taxes paid to defray the cost of maintaining troops in winter quarters. Indirect taxes were levied on the sale of goods rather than on the wealth or property of individuals. The most infamous of the indirect taxes was that on salt, thcjjabelk. The monarchy used its royal monopoly on salt to extract great sums from the populace, but thc£fabelk varied so much as to be viewed as a great inequity. In general, pays d'etat paid considerably less than did pays d'ekction. Variation in the price of salt encouraged smuggling across internal borders. Other indirect taxes included the hated aides, which taxed wine. Whereas direct taxes were imposed and collected by agents of governmental institutions, indirect taxes were farmed out to financiers, who bid for the right to collect these sums for the king. They promised a fixed return, and anything they raised over this and the necessary costs of collection amounted to profit. Thus, private individuals or consortiums of private individuals carried out the basic state function of revenue collection. A third form of revenue was the deniers extraordinaires, or extraordinary levies, such as the sale of orifices or of annuities [rentes]. These revenues were also raised through financiers who became tvaiteurs\ that is, they entered into a contract, or traite. Again they sought to turn a profit, meaning necessarily that those who raised the money had everything to gain by ensuring that all that was raised did not end up in state coffers. In some ways, deniers extraordinaires were the archetypal war tax, because they could be created rapidly and sold off to traiteurs, even though the very institution of traiteurs made for financial inefficiencies and abuses. Come emergencies, the monarchy was always ready to create new offices and titles for the sake of their purchase

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prices. For example, deniers extraordinaires soared from 5.6 million livres in 1630 to an annual average of 51.8 in the period 1633-40.21 The Church provided a fourth source of revenue in lieu of direct taxation. Formally tax exempt, the Assemblee generate du derge bargained with the monarchy and agreed to make certain interest payments for the crown and to allot it periodic free gifts, or dons gratuit. These negotiations could turn into battles, but the spoils were worth the fight; in 1635-36, the Church finally agreed to hand over an unusual bounty of 3.7 million livres, and a nasty confrontation of 1640-41 yielded 5.5 million livres.22 As in most things, the situation became both calmer and more regular during the personal reign of Louis XIV, when the Church increased its contribution to an annual average of more than 3 million livres, in comparison to 2 million under Louis XIII.23 As welcome as these amounts were, they did not represent a fair payment by the Church, so in a sense, the don gratuit can be seen as money spent to buy off the monarchy and preserve the Church's tax-exempt status. The French system produced revenues, but without equity or efficiency. Historians now recognize that the nobility of France enjoyed only partial, not total, tax exemption, but aristocratic status was a great financial advantage nonetheless. In fact, one of the reasons that led individuals to try to buy their way into the nobility through the purchase of offices was to gain that exemption. The system worked to the advantage of those with power and those who controlled institutions that could bargain with the monarchy. They used their leverage to lessen the burdens that they had to bear. Bargaining institutions included the aristocracy itself, the Church, the provincial estates, and even the cities of France. Fiscal privileges won or maintained by this leverage meant that those without bargaining power had to make proportionally higher payments. While the Bourbon monarchy chipped away at traditional privileges, it never purged them in the name of justice or necessity. Therefore, to an important degree, the mounting costs of war were paid by those segments of the population least able to afford them. The burden of taxation mounted steadily from 1600 to 1661. According to the historian Jean Meyer, French taxes quadrupled between 1630 and 1640.24 The bitterness of tax revolts reflected the perceived lack of equity in this spiraling taxation. Once he began his personal reign, Louis XIV turned away from further great tax increases. But he also failed to carry out any great tax reform either; therefore, he relied more on borrowing at high interest. As a result, he may have won France temporary social peace but only by preserving an inefficient and inequitable system of tapping French resources. 21 22

23 24

Bonney, The King's Debts, 175. Frank Tallett, "Church, State, War and Finance in Early-Modern France," Renaissance and Modern Studies 36 (1993), 26-27. Tallett provides a fine brief account of the Church's role in war finance. Talett, "Church, State, War and Finance," 29. M e y e r , " T ) e la g u e r r e ' a u XVTIe siecle," 272.

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At the same time that much was paid through taxation and deniers extraordinaires^ a great deal never reached the royal treasury. As the Venetian ambassador to the French court observed in 1647, "Such are the methods in practice in the confused state of financial administration that the king never has a penny in his purse."25 The same ambassador also said that waste was so great that the king thought himself well served that if out of 100 ecus spent, 40 actually went to the good of his service.26 This failing had to do with the extensive use of financiers in the system, men whose incentives were to keep as much as they could and pay the state as little as possible. Although financiers could be corrupt, they were still necessary to the system because they were sources not only of revenue but credit as well. So, perhaps, the monarchy's reliance on credit made the reform of its revenue system difficult, if not impossible.

Credit The Bourbon monarchy depended on credit to finance its wars. The scale of borrowing escalated during conflicts. During the period 1630-35, it amounted to only 4.2 million livres, when annual revenues stood at 20.5 million, but during the period 1640-45, borrowing soared to 57.2 million livres, exceeding state revenues, which only reached 56.4 million. 27 The monarchy turned to credit due to the inability of revenue to cover the entire costs of conflict and because revenues arrived slowly and on an uncertain schedule, whereas armies needed to be paid promptly at set times to maintain the condition and discipline of the troops. On a certain level, it is hard to separate borrowing from revenue raising. Tax farming and traitis were, in a sense, credit devices, since in both cases, financiers promised and paid (one could say loaned) the monarchy sums in the expectation of being repaid, with interest, by revenues that they were authorized to collect. It is also important to recognize that the same financiers who bought the farms and traites were those who also loaned money to the monarchy in more direct forms. Profits made from tax farming and tvctites would find their way back to the monarchy as loans. In particular, short-term credit proved essential to finance the wars of France. To a large degree, this situation was common to other major European states. Even as late as the Nine Years' War, long-term borrowing only accounted for 10 percent of British war expenses.28 Credit cost the French dearly; between 1656 and 1661, they paid an average of about 15 percent on 25

26

Venetian ambassador, in Georges Livet, "International Relations and the Role of France, 1648-60," New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 4 (Cambridge: 1971), 415. A n g e l o C o r r e r i n L o u i s A n d r e , Michel Le Tellier et Vorganisation de Parme'e monarchique (Paris: 1906), 25-26.

27 28

B o n n e y , The King's Debts, a p p e n d i x t w o , table 8, 317; Mallet, Comptes rendus, 226, 248. J o h n Brewer, The Sinews of Power ( L o n d o n : 1989), 153.

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loans, while the Dutch paid only 4 percent in 1655.29 French interest rates for short-term credit were set by regulation, but these limits were mainly honored in the breach. To win over new creditors, government financiers awarded them illegally high interest and slipped them illicit payments. "By 1661, the royal finances had been almost entirely subverted by the search for short term credit,5' writes Dent.30 Certainly Colbert had the power, energy, and talent to put back some sense in French financial practices. Yet even he could not and did not end the reliance on short-term credit. Perhaps he could have managed without it in peacetime, but when a major war broke out in 1672, he could not avoid the old expedients. Louis XIV also resorted to "anticipations"; money would be loaned on the government's promise to repay the loan with certain future tax income stipulated in advance. Such a method compromised future revenues and thus made borrowing a necessity in years to come, since further loans were needed to cover the shortfall of revenues already promised to pay past debts. Expenses for debt service soared as war continued. In 1694, 78.72 percent of government expenses went to direct military costs and only 8.07 percent to debt service, but by 1697, these percentages changed to 63.61 percent and 23.03 percent, respectively. In 1698, military outlays fell to 49.93 of total expenses, and debt service climbed to 50.00 percent.31 Debt service amounted to as much of a cost of war as did the money spent on gunpowder. No one could rebuild the foundations of French finance as long as French society operated as a strict social hierarchy with great privileges, including tax exemptions, for those at the top. The tax privileges that so favored the Church and the aristocracy insulated much of their wealth from the state. Colbert could not end them; neither could he abolish the purchase of titles of nobility and offices that extended them to greater numbers of the well-todo. One nagging question is why, since the Dutch and the English founded successful state banks during this period, were the French unable to create such an institution, which would have allowed them rationally to exploit long-term credit at reasonable rates. Colbert established a more regular credit fund, the Caisse d'emprunt^ which performed some of the functions of a deposit bank in 1674, but it closed in 1683, and the first true French state bank created under John Law in 1716 failed in a few years.32 The absolutism of Louis XIV may itself have made a strong state bank impossible. National banks thrived among the maritime powers, because their forms of government by assembly put power into the hands of the very men willing and able 29

30 31 32

Bonney, The King's Debts, 318; Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 149s171s (London: 1992), 212-14. Dent, Crisis in Finance, 232. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:429. See the table on French expenses on p. 428. Tallett, War and Society, 214.

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to invest in government securities. Dutch and English national banks were monitored or controlled by the same creditors whose confidence was essential to ensure low rates. Such men could trust in repayment because they could trust themselves. In contrast, Louis demonstrated more inclination to borrow than to repay. Fundamentally, he could not hold the reins of government as firmly as he wished if he abdicated fiscal power to the moneyed segments of society, nor would the aristocracy have permitted him to do so. It was out of the question. In any case, the fact is that under Louis XIV, the absolutist state never effectively mobilized credit through a state bank, and the first attempt at a French national bank, under Law in 1716, failed. The French would not really have a national bank until 1800, and it required a revolution to make such an institution possible. Financiers and Fraud Dependence on credit meant dependence on financiers. Richelieu said "financiers .. . make up a separate party, prejudicial to the state but, however, necessary."33 Dent estimates that by 1660 there were about 4,000 men of finance in France.34 While some individuals who were important in French military finance operated outside Paris, that city had become the undisputed hub of the money market after Lyon slipped, never having recovered from its mistake of backing the Catholic League in the sixteenth century. There was an ongoing belief that financiers were nonentities who became rich overnight by rapacious dealings with the government.35 As one contemporary manuscript complained, "For a long time the financiers [participants] insult the misery of the poor people that they ruin by the display of their sumptuous carriages [equipages'] and the luxury of their wives. The majority of them did not have five sols at the beginning of the war... . Their great wealth acquired in so little time is sufficient proof that they have stolen from the king and the public.5'36 But if there were great fortunes to be won in funding the government, there were also great risks. In fact, many financiers ended their days in ruin. Even if they survived, they were expected to put their private fortunes at the service of the state. The state financial system operated by principles that would at best be condemned as conflicts of interest today and at worst would qualify as outright fraud. The major officers within the French fiscal bureaucracy often owed their positions to their personal contacts with the world of the financiers, 33 34

35

36

Richelieu, Testament politique, 250. Julian Dent, "An Aspect of the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: The Collapse of the Financial Administration of the French Monarchy, 1653-61," Economic History Review (August 1967), 256. See hate of financiers as getting quick profits in AG, Arch, hist., feuille 2, undated, probably ca. 1700; and financier nonentities who then became rich, Jean-Baptiste Primi Visconti, Memoires sur la cour de Louis XIV, 1673-1681, Francois Solnon, ed. (Paris: 1988), 131. A G , Arch. hist. 78, feuille 2.

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contacts that allowed them to draw upon its resources. At times, this even required financial officers to borrow on their own credit in order to transfer that money into state accounts. Also, the need to tap the private resources of financiers for the public purposes of the state, even when that state suffered from very shaky credit, led to a complexity of fraud that is only partially understood. Without questionable deals and illegal payments, it would have been impossible to coax money from creditors who had every reason to doubt that the state would honor its commitments. The French state suffered virtual bankruptcy in 1598 and actually declared bankruptcy in 1648; there was also much talk of threatened collapse in the 1630s and 1650s. Another collapse came in 1661, when Colbert estimated the state debt at 451 million livres and the young Louis despaired that finances were "entirely exhausted.5'37 Louis XIV subsequently staved off bankruptcy, but the state finances collapsed again in 1715-16 when he died, leaving a staggering debt of 2.5 billion livres.38 In addition to the total collapse of state finance, periodic chambres de justice could spell ruin for individual financiers.39 Chambres de justice were special courts created to expose financial fraud and misconduct. They were staffed by eighteen to thirty of the king's men holding commissions that could be revoked at any minute. Therefore, the chambres could be used to pursue the monarch's political as well as hisfiscalgoals. For Mousnier, chambres served to assuage public opinion that detested financiers. In 1624 and 1661, chambres were also used to remove particular surintendants des finances: La Vieuville and Fouquet respectively, and their coterie of traitants. Under the early Bourbons, chambres de justice were fairly common, occurring in 1597, 1601,1605-7,1607,1624,1635,1643,1645,1648,1656-57, and 1661-65. In fact, the last Estates General held before the French Revolution, that convened in 1614, asked that chambres de justice be convened regularly every ten years. After Louis XTVs great chambre of 1661-65, the next one came only in 1716, after his death. The sentences handed down by chambres de justice ranged from contributions to charity, fines, and prison terms, to banishment, condemnation to the galleys, and death. Since chambres allowed the king to seize financier's profits and write off part of his debt, they amounted to a form of limited bankruptcy. To an important degree, recourse to bankruptcy and chambres de justice functioned as an extraordinary requisition of wealth from the business and financial community. But the benefits gained from mobilizing such assets for state use were undermined by the fact that such financial conduct drove up interest rates to exorbitant levels. 37

38

39

Colbert in Dent, Crisis in Finance, 43; Louis XIV, Memoires de Louis XIV, Charles Dreyss, ed., 2 vols. (Paris, i860), 2:376. Fernand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse, eds., Histoire economique et sociale de la France, vol. 2 (Paris: 1970), 277. O n chambres de justice, see M o u s n i e r , The Institutions of France, 2:485-90.

28

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

In such a situation, finance ministers and their agents, such as intendants desfinances,called on their personal connections and a good deal of fraud to convince the financial community to lend money to the crown. For example, the government set official limits to the amount of interest that could be paid, with legal caps at 8.33 percent during the period 1594-1601, at 6.25 percent during 1601-34, and at 5.55 percent during 1634-65.40 However, the risk involved could not justify such low returns, so to win over new creditors, government officials awarded creditors, often their friends or relatives, illegally high interest and slipped them illicit payments. Before 1661, when things were at their worst, official accounts had to hide where the money was really going rather than render an exact report of transactions. Much of what the government paid came by way of ordonnances de comptant. These ordonnances, sent out over the king's signature, were not subject to verification or inspection and were not even listed under specific budget lines that would reveal their purpose. The huge extent of ordonnances de comptant during the war years 1635-59 made it, and makes it, impossible to figure the actual cost of the war. For example, consider the period 163540, when annual expenses listed in the royal budget, the etat au vrai^ ran about 42.5 million livres.41 During the same time, Bonney argues that the secret expenses by ordonnances de comptant ran at an additional 37.7 to 39 million per year.42 One of the great values of the ordonnances de comptant is that they threw a false scent across the path of that other financial bloodhound of the monarchy, the Chambre des comptes. Whereas chambres de justice were held infrequently, the chambre des comptes was a permanent auditing body. However, the monarchy kept its mandate limited to verifying accounts in the narrowest sense so that it could not stall the already complicated machinery of state credit. In any case, auditing of accounts was subject to long delays, running ten years and more. Military accounts were no exception; in one case, correspondence of 1705 was still concerned with payments filed in 1677.43 The financial historian Marcel Marion described the chambre des comptes as an "archaic institution, almost without any utility for the good order of public accounts, and even less for the good order of finances."44 Financiers kept their dealings secret to avoid retrospective taxation by a chambre de justice or examination by the less threatening chambre des comptes\ consequently, the official financial records, the etats, were designed to disguise transactions.45 This is why Dent talks of the "cloud cuckoo land of the etats au vrai" insisting on the unreliability of official budgets from the period 40 42 43

44

45

B o n n e y , The King's Debts, 19. 41 M a l l e t , Compts rendus, 224-25. See Bonney, The King's Debts, appendix 2, table 3. AN, G7i777, #75-76. For other cases of delay see, AN, G 7i774, # 86, G7i775, #82-84, and G7i774, 16 February 1684. Marcel M a r i o n , Dictionnaire des institutions de la France aux XVJIe et XVJIIe siecles (Paris: 1923), 82. Bonney, The King's Debts, 278.

CONTEXTS

OF MILITARY

CHANGE

29

before 1661.46 Manipulation of state finances made many a fortune; even Mazarin used his special position to play the game, as did Fouquet and even Colbert. In a more self-righteous moment, Colbert condemned the system, which he claimed "the cleverest men in the realm, concerned in it for forty years, had so complicated in order to make themselves needed [since] they alone understood it."47 The fact is that without corruption and fraud, the system could not have functioned. "It is clear," concludes Dent, "that the whole central financial administration was involved on a permanent basis in conspiracy to commit fraud."48 While Colbert brought some reform after 1661, he did not transform the system. Certainly, the fact that Louis XIV functioned not only as his own first minister but also as his own surintendant des finances improved the situation. However, the most important factor allowing more regular financial practice was the return of peace. Reform was unthinkable during wartime, since it would threaten the flow of credit. For all Colbert's accomplishments, when the French forced a major war in 1672, much of his work went for nothing. Colbert tried to resist the war because of its inevitable effect on finances, and he protested that the expense would be impossible. Louis threatened his controleur general, "Think about it. If you can't do it, there will always be someone who can."49 And Colbert capitulated. Renewed war brought renewed reliance upon the same old varieties of "obfuscation and deceit." 50 Once again the government turned to traditional abuses - sale of offices, bloated short-term bills of credit, alienation of future revenues, and so on.

Other Sources of Finance The military expenses borne directly by the monarch were great, and the means employed to raise funds to meet them were both demanding and complicated, but the full amount spent to maintain the army exceeded the treasure lavished on it by the central government. Towns, provinces, and field armies themselves contributed money and other resources to maintain the troops. Even military officers and state bureaucrats tapped their private wealth to meet military needs. In support of the army, local governmental units appropriated funds in excess of taxation passed on to the central government. Towns, for example, contributed to the expense of lodging troops within their walls. Provinces shouldered expenses for etapes and for sustaining the milice, particularly during the Nine Years' War.51 Special situations brought additional demands. 46 47 48 49 50 51

D e n t , Crisis in Finance, 85. Colbert in Dickson and Sterling, "War Finance, 1689-1714," 298. D e n t , Crisis in Finance, 83. Paul Sonnino, Louis XIV and the origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge: 1989), 172. D e n t , Crisis in Finance, 23. V i c t o r B e l h o m m e , Uarme'e francaise en 1690 (Paris: 1895), 142-43.

3O

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

The estates of Hainault supplied 1,500 carts for the siege of Namur in 1692, and the Languedoc estates contributed over 3.5 million livres to support the war effort in 1693-94, including 345,000 livres for mules to transport the troops' baggage.52 Corvisier estimates that as much as 20 percent of military expenses were charged to such local sources.53 War finance drew upon further resources in two other manners: through requisition and by tapping the personal wealth and credit of its officer corps. Before 1659, the most common form of requisition amounted to little better than pillage, and the most common victims of this were the French population itself. As the grand siecle wore on, the more regular, but still violent, practice of levying contributions spread. Contributions were requisitions of money laid upon territories outside France occupied by French troops. In their form, they mimicked taxation, except that the alternative to payment was the burning of offending towns by Bourbon troops. The huge expense of maintaining an army in the field and the potential of supporting troops by levying demands on the enemy's population, resulted in the strategic advisability of sending your armies to fight on enemy territory. As a matter of course, the state required that colonels and captains foot many of the bills for their units. It was common for colonels to create entire new regiments in wartime largely at their own expense. In addition, the state made use of the credit of other officers, reimbursing them only later, if at all, for authorized outlays. The nature of the expenses imposed on officers were such that it will never be possible to arrive at exactfiguresfor their losses, but they were substantial, contributing to thefinancialdecline of the aristocracy. As the preceding discussion demonstrates, Frenchfinancialstructures and practices constituted a complicated, inefficient, and archaic but necessary aspect of the French military administration in the grand siecle. Although it is tempting to conclude that nothing improved, even under the mighty Louis XIV, this would not be fair, for thefinancialsystem was not plagued by the same high level of chaos under the Sun King that had afflicted it under his father - witness the lack of bankruptcies and chambres de justice between 1665 and 1715. Nevertheless, problems in war finance continued to cripple the Bourbons, because ultimately the king could not have solved his financial problems without entirely redefining French society, a task that was too imposing for even Louis XXV. CONCLUSION This opening discussion has dealt with four contexts for the story that follows, but it should also signal a fifth. The army of the grand siecle was not simply a product of its age; it helped to form that era as well. In particular, 52

53

Andre Corvisier, Les Francais et Varme'e sous Louis XIV (Vincennes: 1975), 188; William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge: 1985), 137. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:429.

CONTEXTS

OF MILITARY

CHANGE

31

war and military institutions were central factors in state formation, a key topic that has drawn scholars to look again at military details once regarded as unimportant. Intertwined with Bourbon absolutism, the army both drove and exemplified the increased power of the monarchy. Whereas it has lately become a mark of historical sophistication to shy away from the term absolutism - or at least to redefine it extensively - this volume embraces a fairly time-honored version of the concept. Traditionally, absolutism signified a notable rise in the authority of the king, often at the expense of the aristocracy, with increased centralization and bureaucratization of government, packaged in baroque grandeur. Where once seventeenth-century absolutism was thought to mark a sharp break with the past, today there is greater emphasis on continuity with a feudal past. Doubtless, the inability of the monarchy to reform itsfinancialhouse adds credence to such a view. Although this study accepts important continuities and limitations, it also argues strongly for significant change in military institutions, which along with the monarchy itself constituted the very essence of the state. Change may have been firmly rooted in the past, but it was change nonetheless, and it clearly prefigured the future. Movement, although often frustrated or modified byfinancialrestraints and social privileges, proceeded in the direction of control, centralization, and bureaucratization - classic absolutism. Given the centrality of military institutions to the state, the transition from an aggregate contract to a state commission army, as outlined in these pages, may best establish the reality of absolutism in the grand siecle. To examine state formation at this point would be premature, for that examination must rely on information yet to be presented in the succeeding chapters. It is best to wait until the end of the journey just begun. But from the start, bear in mind that if the army shaped the state and society, as well as fought their wars, then it is a subject of note for its own sake. It stands as the foundation for the decorative facade of Versailles, the hard substance behind the elegant display.

Army Growth

B

Y the end of the seventeenth century, European warfare pitted collosal armies against one another - armies that dwarfed those of the past. France boasted the greatest of these Goliaths, a force that totaled as many as 420,000 soldiers, at least on paper. It was the largest and hungriest institution maintained by the state. Yet as important as this giant was, the pattern and timing of its growth and its final dimensions remain matters of debate. This chapter presents a new and more rigorous calculation of French army expansion between 1610 and 1715. Of all the developments summed up in the theory of a Military Revolution in early modern Europe, none matters more in the strictly European context than the growth of armies. Across the seas, as Westerners took their first steps toward global domination, numbers mattered less. On foreign shores, they imposed their presence and overcame resistance through superior military technology, discipline, and organization. But on the continent of Europe, contending powers shared the same or similar levels of technology and organization. Victory rested as much on quantity as on quality. French efforts to marshal military forces of ever greater proportions exerted influences far beyond the battlefield. To a large extent, the stress of mobilizing resources to support the new armies reshaped government, redefining basic issues of power and altering methods of finance and administration. The social impact of increased army expansion rivaled the political. The lower strata of the population filled the ranks through massive recruitment and, after 1688, through conscription, while those who remained at home could not escape the oppressive taxation required by the costs of war. Elites defined and were defined by their role in a large officer corps. Beyond this, horrendous abuses of civilian communities by troops supposedly loyal to the Bourbons, repeated rebellions spurred by spiraling impositions, and the potential for intimidation and repression threatened by a huge army, all demand that historians give significant weight to the phenomenon of French army growth 32

ARMY

GROWTH

33

during the seventeenth century. At the base of any such study must be an accurate picture of the pattern and proportions of that growth. For over a century, historians divided French military expansion into two stages. First, in order to challenge Spain, Richelieu and Louis XIII assembled an army of unprecedented size in 1635. Totaling 150,000 or more, this force was at least twice as large as any previous wartime military maintained by the French monarchy. A second phase of growth followed the military and administrative reform associated with the first decades of the personal reign of Louis XIV. Troop strength reached 280,000 during the Dutch War and attained 400,000 in the Nine Years' War, continuing at that level for the War of the Spanish Succession. Since the mid-1950s, proponents of a Military Revolution in early modern Europe, most notably Michael Roberts and Geoffrey Parker, have insisted that the need to raise and support armies larger than ever before dictated administrative, fiscal, and governmental reforms. This side of the Military Revolution has attracted historians and social scientists concerned with state formation, most notably Charles Tilly, who writes, "As they fashioned an organization for making war, the king's servants inadvertently created a centralized state. First the framework of an army, then a government built around that framework - and in its shape."1 Of course, reason dictates that in order for military necessity to have brought on government reform, the growth of the army must have predated that reform, not the other way around. Recently published revisionist scholarship jettisons this longstanding portrayal. The most serious attack denies military growth prior to 1659, while asserting that growth after that date came as a byproduct of social stability under Louis XTV. David Parrott, a young English scholar, has played a key role in questioning substantial military expansion before the Peace of the Pyrenees.2 While not the first, he has been the most effective in arguing that very little actual reform occurred during the war years of the Richelieu era. 3 Parrott states that the historical thesis that Richelieu instituted a virtual administrative revolution is "underpinned by an assumption that the size of the army increased massively from 1635. But this assumption proves equally 1

2

3

Charles Tilly, The Contentious French (Cambridge, MA: 1986), 128. See as well, Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Oxford: 1990); Brian M. Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: 1992); and Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson, War and State Making: The Shaping of the Global Powers (Boston: 1989). David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1985, and "Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years' War: The 'Military Revolution,'"MilitargeschichtlicheMitteilungen, XVIII, 2 (1985). Other works that detail the ineffectiveness of reform before 1659 include Patrick Landier, "Guerre, Violences, et Societe en France, 1635-1659," doctorat de troisieme cycle, Universite de Paris IV, 1978; Jonathan Berger, "Military and Financial Government in France, 16481661," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979; and Bernard Kroener, Les routes et les etapes. Die Bersorgung derfranzoschichenArmeen in Nordostfrankreich (163S-1661), 2 vols. (Munster: 1980).

34

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

untenable.554 In his recent A Military Revolution^ Black embraces Parrotfs arguments, putting them in even stronger terms than Parrott intended. Black disputes the concept of a Military Revolution, particularly as originally proposed by Michael Roberts, who assigned it to the century 1560-1660.5 Crucially, Black ascribes all French military growth to Louis XIV5s personal reign. The fact that he shifts the time period away from Roberts 5s original dates is of little consequence in itself, since others, including Parker, had done that before. More critically, Black insists that the military expansion occurring after 1660 came only as the consequence of increased government capacity made possible by social and political compromises hammered out under Louis XIV. Therefore, Black dismisses the army and war as causes of political change and instead reduces them to mere effects. While controversy over the Military Revolution draws attention to military expansion during the first half of the seventeenth century, Andre Corvisier requires historians to look again at the army that fought the last war of the Sun King. Historians have long featured the War of the Spanish Succession as Louis's greatest war effort, one which, in the words of the most recent book on the subject, saw "armies inflated to reach unprecedented size.556 Corvisier goes even further, insisting that the forces mobilized to fight the War of the Spanish Succession approached in size those raised by revolutionary France nearly a century later. Recently he restated this thesis in the first volume of the new Histoire militaire de la France.7 There he adds new contingents to the forces of Louis XIV to boost their numbers until it compares favorably with the levee en masse. To the 300,000 French troops that he claims for the regular army circa 1709-10, Corvisier would add naval forces, local militias, and other forces to yield a grand total of 600,000. His debatable mathematics seem to flow from a resolution to demonstrate that a patriotic wave a la 1792 engulfed the France of the Sun King. Here he follows Emile G. Leonard, who posited this view in the 1950s.8 The larger the forces raised during the War of the Spanish Succession, the more they justify Corvisier 5s notion of a nationalistic effort predating the fall of the Bastille. While Corvisier5s thesis is neither so new nor so important as those of Parrott and Black, its restatement in a work that promises to become a standard reference for a generation or more requires some response. Revisionist challenges to traditional conceptions of army growth as they relate to the Military Revolution, state formation, and a "patriotic55 effort 4 5

6 7

8

Parrott, " The Administration of the French Army," iv. Black presents his most strident case in A Military Revolution? (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: 1991), but his European Warfare, 1660-181S (New Haven, CT: 1994) uses figures generated in John A. Lynn, "Recalculating French Army Growth During the Grand siecle^ 1610-1715," French Historical Studies^ vol. 18, no. 4 (Fall 1994), so it is more in accord with this chapter. Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, 149S-1715 (London: 1992), 80. Corvisier section in Philippe Contamine, ed., Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 1 (Paris: 1992), 531. Emile G. Leonard, Varme'e et ses problemes au XVJIIe siecle (Paris: 1958).

ARMY

GROWTH

35

under Louis XIV make a recalculation of military expansion necessary. Until the last few years, it was acceptable to speak of army size by appealing to officialfinancialand military statements, etats^ but today an evaluation of army size demands a new methodology employing a wider range of source material. METHODOLOGY: DISTINCTIONS AND SOURCES An effort to set the record straight must be very careful concerning exactly what is to be counted and the kinds of sources to be employed. Trying to fix army size involves numerous technical points, but many of them come down to being certain that one is not comparing apples with oranges. The first and the most basic difference to bear in mind is that between a field force and a state's entire army. A single field force, usually assembled in one location under one commander, only constitutes part of the total armed might of the state, which may have more than one army on campaign at the same time, while committing still other troops to garrison duty. As strange as it may seem, historians are forever muddying the distinction between the troops marshaled for a single battle and the army as a whole. This chapter concerns itself with total army size; the number of troops committed to particular campaigns and battles is dealt with later. This leads to the question of who should be counted as part of an army. Obviously, field armies and garrison forces composed of regular troops must be included, but who else? Local and provincial units who stayed at home to guard their towns and man their walls but were not supported by the monarchy and did not necessarily serve full time ought not to be tallied as royal troops. However, militiamen who after 1688 served the king at the front in their own or regular battalions belong in the totals presented here. Noncombatants traveling with the army pose another problem. Often discussions of early modern armies calculate the numbers of traders, women, and children who accompanied the troops; however, such camp followers will not be considered here. Nor do valets, pages, grooms, or other personal servants qualify.9 In counting troop numbers, it is also important to differentiate when units are tallied. Above all, one must contrast peacetime with wartime forces, because they differed in size and composition. Obviously, peacetime figures were much smaller than wartime numbers, with few exceptions. By 1670, wartime tallies generally stood three times higher than the number of troops maintained between conflicts. At the end of each war, the government demobilized, or "reformed," individual soldiers, surplus companies, and entire regiments. The fact that armies were much smaller during peacetime years under Louis XIV meant that when conflicts began these forces had to expand, 9

According to Oudard Coquault, during the Fronde, an army of 20,000 men had 10,000 valets. Albert Babeau, La vie militaire sous Vanden regime, 2 vols. (Paris: 1890), 1:198-99.

36

C O N T E X T AND

PARAMETERS

and, understandably, this took some time. Beyond these dramatic shifts, more subtle rhythms determined army size during times of conflict. The combat strength of military units normally fluctuated over the course of the year. Established regiments enjoyed their most complete complement just as they entered the campaign season in May or June, but battle casualties and losses from disease and desertion eroded numbers over the summer months. Winter quarters provided time for rest, refitting, and recruitment. New levies arrived in late winter or early spring to flesh out units, so that they grew until they went off on campaign to repeat the cycle. Not only does a careful accounting of army size need to bear in mind the nature of forces to be compared and the times when those forces are to be examined, but it must also take into account the different types of sources that provide the basis for such a study. In general, this includes four varieties of records: (i) military ordinances; (2) financial controles and etats\ (3) review reports and routes; and (4) miscellaneous correspondence. A minute study of the first, military ordinances, promises to reveal the decrees altering army size. In the nineteenth century, Victor Belhomme made the most thorough attempt to undertake this laborious feat. He charted the number of French regiments year by year, sometimes month by month, for the entire seventeenth century.10 However, the problem with employing military ordinances is that, as in other aspects of government as well, official ordinances may bear little relation to reality. In fact, Belhomme's figures are suspect, because they greatly exceed the levels generated by more reliable sources until he deals with the period after 1670, by which time Louis and Louvois had imposed greater regularity on the system. Administrators also left behind a number of contemporary etats that supply numbers of troops for the army as a whole. Such etats come in several forms. A small collection known as the "Tiroirs de Louis XIV55 were reports and planning documents in the king's own possession.11 In the majority of cases, however, official records stating the size of the entire army are financial documents generated as aids in estimating the cost of supporting the army in the present or coming year. Such financial controles provide a consistent, and convenient, source for the study of army size; therefore, generations of historians have uncritically appealed to them when judging army size. Yet the controles have recently come under attack. David Parrott questions their value, making the important and valid point that they were only financial documents designed to predict the amount of money that would be paid out 10

11

Victor Belhomme, Histoire de Vinfanterie en France^ 5 vols. (Paris: 1893-1902). Actually, his lack of theoretical discussion and footnotes hide his exact sources, but it seems virtually certain that he based his work on the military ordinances collected at the ministry of war and the Bibliotheque Nationale. Louis was probably referring to these when he confidently stated that "What makes me more certain of my enterprises is that I have an accurate etat of my troops, their quartering, and their number." Louis's journal for April 1667, Louis XIV, Memoires de Louis XIV, Charles Dreyss, ed., 2 vols. (Paris: i860), 2:167.

ARMY

GROWTH

37

by the monarchy for salaries and sustenance. Troop sizes drawn from them are entirely theoretical, so Parrott would completely discard them.12 But this goes too far. True, controles were statements of anticipated expenditures rather than head counts; however, the expenditures in question were figured as a given number of payments to a given number of troops, and therefore they reflected projections of army size. Financial controles retain important value as theoretical maximums that can then be discounted to approximate real numbers. A basic method used to set army size in financial documents and other estimates of total army size involved calculating the number of companies or battalions and squadrons present, and then multiplying that number by the regulation complement of men set for that unit by ordinance. While this method of calculation is not always explicitly employed, it is so common that it can be assumed as underlying virtually all gross statements of army size and cost. Working within the parameters of this seventeenth-century technique, other documents, review reports and etapes routes, allow the raw data supplied in e'tats and controles to be refashioned into more realistic estimates of actual army size. Review reports and etapes routes provide actual head counts of troops. Review reports were prepared by military bureaucrats for administrative reasons, as when distributing pay and rations to soldiers. Troops on the road traveling from place to place carried routes, documents that stipulated their route and the stops that they were allowed to make along the way. At each stop, they were entitled to rations and lodging, so the routes stated exactly how many men of what ranks were to be fed and housed. By their nature, review reports and routes dealt only with individual units or small groups of units rather than with an entire army, but they will be put to a broader use here. Because the actual sizes of units can be calculated from reviews and routes, these numbers can be used to estimate the percentage of regulation strength actually present under arms. Gross statements of army size can then be discounted by this percentage to yield a reasonable estimate of real troop numbers. The last category of sources covers a varied range of documents that, while not systematic, can be very useful. In particular, when government officials discuss the king's forces in their letters and memoranda, they provide valuable corroboration of other sorts of documents, notably those financial controles that have come under attack. The use of sources in this manner underlines the fact that the best estimates of army size emerge from combining different sources and cross-checking whenever possible. A NECESSARY BASELINE: ARMY F I G U R E S , 1300-1610 No matter how careful the selection and calculation offigures,a study of military expansion can still go awry should it fail to establish a proper baseline 12

Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 135.

38

CONTEXT

AND

PARAMETERS

against which to measure growth after 1610. In the interest of creating reasonable grounds for comparison, a careful study must go back before the start of the century, even extending the search to the medieval era. Philippe Contamine supplies a series of estimates for the size of royal forces during the late Middle Ages. H e believes that the medieval French monarchy mustered its largest force in 1340, when it assembled 60,000 troops in two theaters at the start of the Hundred Years5 War, although this number included feudal levies.13 Over the course of the next century, the ravages of the Black Death precluded putting as many men in the field again.14 Under Louis XI (1461-83), wartime highs began to approach the proportions of the pre-plague past. Taking the entire second half of the fifteenth century into consideration, Contamine pegs wartime forces as generally between 40,000 and 45,000 combatants. 15 During the fifteenth century, peacetime forces also grew. Charles V (136480) kept garrison forces that reached only 5,20c 16 Charles VII (1422-61) created the first permanent standard units, the compagnies d'ordonnance^ in 1445. These fifteen companies each contained 100 lances at a time when a lance included six mounted men, of whom only four qualified as combatants. Therefore, 1,500 lances produced 6,000 combatants, not the 9,000 often cited. Adding in garrison infantry, the nwrtes payes, Contamine estimates the average peacetime level of the army, 1445-75, as about 14,000.17 During the last three years of his reign, Louis XI maintained a huge force of 47,50024,000 of which assembled in his "camp de guerre."18 This costly military establishment did not survive Louis's death, and by 1490, the army contained only about 12,800 cavalry, 3,500 nwrtes payes, and 800 household guards.19 As the focus changes to the sixteenth century, Ferdinand Lot, Bxcherches sur Us effectifi des armeesfranpaisesdes Guerres d'ltalie aux Guerres de Religion, 1494-1562, provides the best guide to the study of French army size. However, two caveats must be borne in mind when using Lot's work. First, it is not always clear whether his figures should be taken as theoretical or real totals. Second, he emphasizes field forces for particular campaigns rather than estimates of total army size; therefore, his figures often need to be supplemented by the research of other historians. 13 14

15

16

Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:137-38. After 1340, numbers fell off rapidly; in 1342, the king could claim only 9,500, and in 1383, he sent off but 16,000 to the relief of Ypres, although this was only a single field army. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:137, 172. Philippe Contamine, Guerre, etat et societe a la fin du moyen Age. Etudes sure les armees des rois de France, 1337-1404 (Paris: 1972), 316-17. During the months of bad weather, this declined to 3,400. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:145.

17 18 19

Contamine, Guerre, etat et societe, 278-83, 286. According to Philippe de Commynes in Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:229-30, 232. 3,200 lances figured at four combatants each. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:219-21. See total figure of 18,400 in Contamine, Guerre, etat et societe, 317.

ARMY GROWTH

39

Lot deflates traditional, overblown statements of French army size. He rejects exaggerated notions of the army that Charles VIII led on his first invasion of Italy. Excluding Italian units not in the pay of France, Lot arrives at a figure of 22,000 to 27,2oo.20The French staged the invasion of 1499 in much the same proportions, with 23,000 to 29,000 troops.21 He argues that this second figure represented the entire force of the French army, since Louis XII left only "a simple escort" back in France. Lot estimates that 41,000 troops served Francois I at the time of Marignano, 1515, including troops left north of the Alps to protect the provinces.22 Putting his faith in the Bourgeois de Paris, a source Lot rejects, Henry Lemonnier gives the number of troops at 57,750 in 1523, which again includes 10,200 left to garrison France.23 Lot speculates that the field army size during the first half of the century may have reached an apogee of 50,000-60,000 late in 1536, but even Lot regards his sources here as "naturally doubtful."24 In fact, 1544 seems a better candidate for peak total army size. In April, French forces won the battle of Ceresoles in Piedmont, but summer brought invasions by both Henry VIII and Charles V in the north of France. Francois scurried to assemble forces to meet them, withdrawing as many as 12,000 troops from Italy and hiring thousands of Swiss and Germans. Counting Francois's main army around Jalons, Brissac's force that confronted the Imperialists at Saint-Dizier, Biez's army that threw itself into Montreuil, the garrison of Boulogne, Vendome's army around Hesdin, and troops remaining in Italy, as well as providing for miscellaneous garrisons, the total of French forces probably added up to 69,000 to 77,000 troops.25 This was an extraordinary and short-lived strain on French resources, since the army only existed at this level briefly during the late summer. It is worth noting that Francois I wrote that at best, his subjects could support 50,000 troops.26 There is little reason to believe that the French topped this figure during 1552, the year that witnessed both the French "Voyage d'Allemagne" and the siege of Metz by Charles V. Lot's analysis reveals that Henri II conducted only 36,650 paid troops on his "voyage," while another 11,450 remained to 20

21

22 23

24 25

26

F e r d i n a n d L o t , Recherches sur les effectifs des armees francaises des Guerres d'ltalie aux Guerres de Religion, 1494-1S62 (Paris: 1962), 21. He devotes his entire first chapter to conflicting claims. Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs, 27. This represents something of a discounted figure, since on page 26 Lot also suggests a less critical figure of 26,000 to 38,000 as presented by Leon Pelissier, Louis XII et Ludovic Sforza, 2 vols. (Paris: 1896), 1:384-86. L o t , Recherches sur les effectifs, 4 1 . Lemonnier's figures for cavalry exceed Lot's, since the former counts the entire lance and the latter counts only the combatants within it. Henry Lemonnier, Histoire de France, ed. Ernest Lavisse, vol. 5, part 2, La lutte contre la maison d'Autriche, isi9-iss9 (Paris: 1904), 8461. L o t , Recherches sur les effectifs, 65. Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs, 95,104; Charles O m a n , History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century ( L o n d o n : 1937), 340, 343; Lemonnier, La lutte contre la maison d'Autriche, 114; C o n t a m i n e , Histoire militaire, 1:242. C o n t a m i n e , Histoire militaire, 1:305.

4-O

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

defend France.27 Even if an additional 10,000 troops garrisoned Piedmont and certain French outposts, the total still only reached 60,000. Henri again led field forces of similar proportions in 1558, when he assembled 40,150 to 40,550 at Pierrepont.28 Winding up his discussion of the Italian Wars, Lot credits Charles IX with an army of 36,720 in 1562, after the Peace of CateauCambresis, but it seems best to reject this exaggerated estimate, because it rests on very questionable sources.29 Unfortunately, Lot did not devote his considerable skills to the study of the Wars of Religion (1562-98). To be sure, the confusion of the Wars of Religion daunts the boldest of scholars. In his treatment of them, Corvisier provides only a few generalizations for the second half of the sixteenth century. He concludes that owing to demographic, fiscal, and military limitations, the kings of France could support no more than 50,000 men at any one time.30 Recently, James B. Wood has presented more impressive estimates for the maximum size of the royal army during the months of December 1567 and January 1568. He calculates that the monarchy claimed a paper force of 72,388 troops in the theater of combat.31 To this substantial force should be added 12,000 troops stationed elsewhere in France and Italy as well as an unknown number of small garrisons, raising the theoretical total to at least 84,000, the largest force mustered by the French monarchy during the Wars of Religion.32 However, the manner in which Wood calculated his estimate requires that it be shaved down to an absolute paper maximum of less than 8o,ooo.33 Even allowing for this, Wood demonstrates that the government intended to maintain wartime forces that equaled those marshaled by Francois I and Henri II. Of course, the rebel armies arrayed against the king are not counted, even though they too were French forces maintained by French resources. The Royal army's peacetime numbers were understandably much smaller. Wood documents the average peacetime strength of the gendarmerie at 6,500 27

28

29

30 31

32

33

"Estat de Parmee," Bibliotheque Nationale, hereafter cited as BN, f. fr. 2965, fol. 2-4, in Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs, 129-30, 133, with corrections and additions for garrison troops. Lot makes a mistake in his addition, sending the figure 1,000 men higher than shown here. Review of Pierrepont and Rambutin in Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs, 179-86. In addition, Henri would also have reinforcements of 8,400 and surviving cavalry from Gravelines, p. 186. "Abrege de l'Etat militaire de la France," a financial document, in Lot, Recherches sur les effectifs, 190-92. James Wood dismisses his documentation as "very poor" for this figure. Personal letter of 3 September 1992. C o n t a m i n e , Histoire rnilitaire, 1:305. Figures based on a series of etats presented in table form by James B. Wood, "The Royal Army During the Early Wars of Religion, 1559-1576," in Mack P. Holt, ed. Society & Institutions in Early Modern France (Athens, GA: 1991), 10-11. In a letter of 3 September 1992, Wood states that the 72,000 was only a theater estimate and that there were other infantry and gendarmes elsewhere. He believes that "the second war [of religion] represents a maximum for the royal forces." Wood combined the maximum sizes for all units, even if particular units might be cited as smaller in other documents.

ARMY GROWTH

41

horsemen between 1559 and 1576.34 Adding this to the 6,229 infantry garrison troops listed for January 1572 generates a total of approximately 12,700 standing troops that year.35 In the final stage of the Wars of Religion, after Henri IV ascended to the throne in 1589, the best estimates put his army in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 60,000 based on multiplying the number of companies by their theoretical strengths.36 The return of peace at the close of the sixteenth century brought a thorough demobilization of French forces under the thrifty and efficient direction of Sully. Soon after the Treaty of Vervins, 1598, the army shrank to a strength of 7,200 to 8,500.37 After the brief Savoyard War (1600), the figure seems to have hovered about 10,000 during the first decade of the seventeenth century.38 When Henri IV decided to challenge Spain in 1610, he and Sully drew up plans for wartime forces on the scale of the previous century, totaling about 55,000 men in two major armies, a mobile reserve, and garrison troops.39 Assassination put an end to both the monarch and his plans. This examination of the period from the late Middle Ages through 1610 reveals less military growth than might be expected. Wartime highs ranged from 40,000 to 45,000 in the late fifteenth century and reached 50,000 to 80,000 in the sixteenth. Peacetime levels varied more, but considering the period as a whole, peacetime highs of 10,000 to 20,000 were common; Louis XFs attempt to maintain permanent forces far in excess of that figure was simply a brief aberration. THEORETICAL MAXIMUM TROOP F I G U R E S , 1610-1715 Bearing this benchmark in mind, consider the theoretical paper totals raised and maintained by the French after 1610. The minor wars and rebellions that 34

Wood claims that during peacetime lulls, 1559-76, the monarchy supported on average sixtyfour to sixty-nine companies of gendarmes, totaling about 6,500 horsemen. Wood, "The Royal Army During the Early Wars of Religion," 3. 35 Wood, "The Royal Army During the Early Wars of Religion," 5-6. 36 For 1588-89, see BN, Chatre de Cange, vol. 18, #393, "Estat des compagnies de gens de guerre a pied." See, as well, Nicolas Edouard Delabarre-Duparcq, Uart militaire pendant les guerres de religion, IS62-IS98 (Paris: 1863), 24. For 1597 see BN, Chatre de Cange, vol. 20, #33, "Etat des regiments et des capitaines ayant charge de compagnies de gens de pied pour le service du Roy tant en son armee que aux garnisons de Picardie, Champagne, Bourgoyne et Bresse en Janvier 1597." 37 Sully, Memoires de Maximillien de Bethune due de Sully, 3 vols. (London: 1747), 2:26. Joseph Servan, Recherches sur la force de Varmeefrancaise,depuis Henri IV jusqu'a lafinde 1806 (Paris: 1806), 2, uses the same figures. 38 Infantry regiments stood at 4,100, cavalry at 2,637, and garrison infantry at 3,000 for a total of 9->7$7-> according to Servan, Recherches, 2-4. 39 Sully, Memoires des sages et royales oeconomies d'estat de Henry le grand, vols. 8 a n d 9 in Petitot, ed., Collection des Memoires relatifi a Vhistoire de France, 2 n d ser.(Paris: 1821), 8:351, 9:65-68. Different editions and translations of Sully's Memoires give different figures.

42

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

broke out during the regency and extended into the 1630s sent the size of the French army above the 10,000 peacetime level.40 As early as 1615, there may have been 30,000 men assembled in royal field forces to fight against internal revolt.41 At the Assembly of Notables held in 1626, marshal Schomberg announced the monarchy's intention to maintain an army of 3o,ooo. 42 However, a "Projet de depense5' for 1627 indicates a strength of only about 18,000 men.43 Renewed war with the Huguenots made such a force inadequate; the siege of La Rochelle, 1627-28, alone required 28,000 troops. 44 David Parrott believes that by 1630 the official strength of the army, with forces in Champagne and Italy, stood at 39,ooo.45 Full-scale war would send these figures soaring in the next five years. Direct French participation in the Thirty Years' War began in 1635, and the struggle continued long after the Treaties of Westphalia were signed in 1648; not until the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 would peace return. This war with Spain created armies of unprecedented size, according to official documents. Since so much of the current historiographical debate rests on the timing and level of increases between 1635 and 1659, they demand special attention. Several sources point to important increases in 1634 as the French mobilized to enter the war with Spain. An ccEstat des gens de guerre qui sont sur pied a la fin d'Aoust 1634" shows 100,368 soldiers in service at that time. 46 A letter from Richelieu to the king on 13 September supports this figure, mentioning 89,000 men in French service, out of an intended 95,000, with more on the way.47 In October, an additional "Estat des troupes faict en 40

41

42

43

44 45

46 47

Deageant stated that Louis's council advised him to levy "an hundred thousand Men," but there is no indication that such a force was ever actually raised before 1635. Guichard Deageant de Saint-Martin, Memoirs ofMonsieur Deageant (London: 1690), 135. I thank Brian Sandberg for supplying this material. Belhomme would have us believe that the French mustered 97,000 infantry in 1622 and 64,000 in 1624, figures which as usual seem far to high. Belhomme, Infanterie, 1:331, 337. Jacques Humbert, Le Marechal de Crequy: Gendre de Lesdiguieres, 1573-1638 (Paris: 1962), 7172. Mercure francais, vol. 6, 323-33. Again, thanks t o Brian S a n d b e r g for this material. Figures in Nicolas E d o u a r d Delabarre-Duparcq, Histoire de Vart de la, guerre, vol. 2 (Paris: 1864), 159, a n d detailed in B e l h o m m e , Infanterie, 1:337. B N , Chatre de Cange, vol. 22, # 6 4 , "Projet de depense de Pextraordinaire des guerres pour Pannee 1627." This source actually counts 12,572 m e n , b u t it gives the financial upkeep for "garnisons ordinaires," a n d figured at the same rate as line infantry, this would yield another 5,500 troops. See as well, B N , Chatre de Cange, vol. 22, #63, which gives a count of 11,810 without garrisons. F . d e Vaux de Folletier, Le siege de la Rochelle (Paris: 1931), 237-38. Table of projected and real t r o o p strength in Parrott, " T h e Administration of the French Army," 142. B N , f. fr. 6385. Armand du Plesis, due de Richelieu, Lettres, instructions diplomatiques et papiers d'etat du cardinal de Richelieu, ed. Avenel, 8 vols. (Paris: 1853-77), 4:601. Discussing this letter, Parrott accepts a figure of 45,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, and an additional 30,000 garrison troops, a total of 83,000 troops in service. Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 106.

ARMY GROWTH

43

octobre 1634," boosts the number to 124,50c48 Building from such an expanding base, thefinancialdocuments for 1635 seem reasonable. A projection for 1635 drafted in November 1634 set the number of troops slightly higher at 125,000.49 Again correspondence confirms thisfinancialdocument as more than merely a statement of funds to be spent. Servien, the Secretary of State for war, outlined the use of 115,000 men for 1635 in a document written in January of that year; even in Parrotfs opinion, this letter is "an indication of actual intentions."50 Semen's total falls short of 125,000 by a mere 8 percent. It seems reasonable to surmise that as war approached and tensions grew, so did the desire for more troops, and this may explain the higher projections made by mid-1635. A controkfromApril sets troop size at 142,000 to i44,ooo.51 The well-known and much misused controk for May 1635, prominently reprinted in Avenel's collection, is usually employed to justify claims that the French planned to mobilize 150,000 troops; however, if its numbers are calculated with care, they actually project a force of as many as 168,100.52 With such documentation as a basis, it seems entirely reasonable, even modest, to adopt the traditional estimate of French intentions: 150,000 troops for the campaign season of 1635. The year 1636 brought even higher projections. A "Controle general des armees du Roy pour Fannee 1636" dated December 1635 and contained in the collection of military ordinances at the Archives de Guerre, breaks the year into three periods with the following troop strengths: 157,979 to 15 April; 179,900 from 15 April to the end of July; and 164,260 from the end of July to the point when the troops would enter winter quarters.53 Since this particularly interesting document takes into account the natural growth and 48 49

50

51 52

53

B N , f. fr. 6385. AAE, 811, fol. 120, 7 November 1634 plans for 1635, in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 19. AAE, France 811, fol. 129, 7 November 1634 in Richard Bonney, The King's Debts (Oxford: 1981), 173, arrives at 124,500. A A E , France, 813, fol. 15, letter o f 10 January 1635, Servien t o Richelieu, in Parrott, " T h e Administration of the French Army," 107. AAE, France 813, fol. 301, 23 April 1635, in Bonney, The King's Debts, 173. A A E , 70, fol. 37, Controk for 1635, in Richelieu, Lettres, 5:3-6. T h e confusion arises from t h e complicated way that totals are shown. First there are two different columns for infantry with a difference of 1,500 between them, 134,000 or 135,500. Cavalry is then shown as 16,680, though it would appear that it should have been 16,480. Some take this as the full count, giving a total of 150,680. However, it misses three points. Sandwiched in the cavalry is a notation for 6,000 "chevaux" not counted as cavalry because they might have been some other form of "horse." Next to the cavalry is a column for 4,200 "dragons"; these should be counted too, giving a corrected total for all mounted arms of 26,680 (with corrected addition), not 16,680. Moreover, a notation on the infantry says "Garrisons, 36,000, who at the most will be paid only as 30,000," and since the document is fundamentally a financial one, garrisons are counted only at the lower figure; however, the infantry total with the larger garrison figure should be 140,000 to 141,500. This plus the corrected cavalry total gives 166,680 to 168,180. S H A T , Bib., Collection des ordonnances militaires, vol. 14, #87, "Controle general des armees d u R o y p o u r l'annee 1636," dated December 1635.

44

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

decline in numbers over the course of the year, it seems to reflect military reality more than simply to serve as a financial convenience. Other controles^ apparently put together later, gave markedly higher estimates. Both David Parrott and Richard Bonney cite controles that projected 172,000 infantry, 21,400 cavalry, and 12,000 additional cavalry, for a total of 205,000 troops, which included the small army under Bernard of Saxe Weimar, which received French pay.54 Numbers dropped in 1637 - a controle for that year reduced the troop total to 134,720 - however, numbers mounted again in 1638-39.55 An "Etat des troupes devant servir en 1638," which dealt with forces in the spring, listed 160,010 troops. 56 Another ccEtat des troupes pour 1639," describing winter quarters in 1638-39, brought the number down to 148,18c57 But a July 1639 etat presents a much higher total, perhaps the highest for the war, 211,950.58 This again includes troops under Bernard. One last source worth mentioning provides the basis for an estimate of troop strength in 1642. This "Estat des armees du roy en 1642" lists only the numbers of infantry and cavalry companies, but figuring these at their full strengths produces a total of at least 164,000 troops. 59 So the Richelieu ministry recorded paper numbers that varied from 135,000 to 211,000 and commonly hovered around 150,000 to 160,000. Lest these grand sums seem entirely out of line, it is worth noting that Richelieu reconciled Louis XIII to the expense of the war by reminding him that by sustaining 180,000 troops the king had provided "posterity an immortal argument of the power of this crown." 60 It seems that controles and etats listing the entire army are rare or nonexistent during the Mazarin regime. Still, Belhomme's study of the ordinances may aid in tracing the pattern of army size after 1642. While his numbers are not acceptable as literal reality, their rise and fall probably reflect official 54

55

56

57

58

AAE, France 820, fol. 200, Controle generale, 15 April 1636, in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 91, 99. Bonney, The King's Debts, 17361, seems to err slighting, counting the total as 199,400. He also gives an additional citation to AAE, France 823,fol.255. AAE, France 828, fols. 311-23, 330-51, 1637, in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 115. AAE, France 832, fol. 1, in Bernard Kroener, "Die Entwicklung der Truppenstarken in den franzosischen Armeen zwischen 1635 und 1661," in Konrad Repgen, ed., Forschungen und Quellen zur Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges (Munster: 1981), 201. Using other documents in the same carton, AAE, France 832, fols. 1-19,1638, Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 117, calculated a total of 164,000. AAE, France 832, fols. 288-293, in Kroener, "Die Entwicklung der Truppenstarken," 201. This is apparently the "Etat au vrais des effectifs et de la solde" for 1639 cited by Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, ed. Ernest Lavisse, vol. 6, part 2 (Paris: 1911), 318, since it lists the same total. B N , f. fr. 17555,fol'i;. "Etat des troupes tant d'infanterie q u e d e cavalerie d o n t seront composees les armees du roy durant l'annee 1639," in Kroener, "Die Entwicklung der Truppenstarken," 203.

59 60

B N , Collection D u p u y , #590, #244. Richelieu, "Succincte narration des grandes actions d u r o i , " in Petitot, ed., Collection des memoires relatifs a Vhistoire de France, 2nd ser. (Paris: 1821), 11:317.

ARMY

GROWTH

45

intentions to alter army size by changing company strengths and adding or subtracting entire regiments. His calculations indicate two high points in the curve of army size, one in 1636 and a second somewhat higher level from 1644 until the partial demobilization that followed the Treaties of Westphalia.61 After 1649, the army never again matched the levels it had attained during 1635-48.62 At the victorious conclusion of the long and exhausting struggle with Spain, the French "reformed" the army by cutting the number of companies drastically and the number of troops decidedly less. Belhomme's purely speculativefiguresfor infantry alone show a drop from 156,000 infantry in 1658 to a post-demobilization figure of 67,000 in 1659, rising to 75,000 in 1660.63 Given his methods, he really demonstrates only an abolition of units after the war. In fact, Louis apparently kept a large percentage of the actual troops. Mazarin informed Turenne late in 1659, "It is therefore necessary to eliminate [reformer] a good number of companies . . . [but] it is the King's intention not to discharge a single cavalryman or infantryman, but to fortify well the companies that remain, by incorporating into them the soldiers from those [companies] that are eliminated."64 Review reports collected by Kroener reveal the practical effect of the pruning andfillingthat followed the war. Companies that presented only fifteen men in 1659, or 50 percent of their regulation strength of thirty, mustered fully fifty men or more, 100 percent of their new increased official complement, in 1660.65 Louis XIV himself boasted of having nearly 72,000 troops in 1660, after demobilization, clearly the largest peacetime force the French had ever supported.66 The army continued to shrink for the next several years, declining sometime before early 1665, when a tally of units pegs the army at about 50,000 just before the build up for the War of Devolution sent totals upward again.67 The number of troops began to increase late in 1665, probably passing 60,000.68 Referring to a letter of March 1666, Rousset concludes that the king's troops reached 72,000 then, whereas Louis Andre, citing other documents, argues that the army topped 97,515 later in the year, a figure that 61 62

63 64

65

66

67 68

See Belhomme, Infanterie, vols. 1 and 2. Corvisier's statement that the army numbered 250,000 in 1658 should not be accepted; it seems to be based on Belhomme's inflated figures. Corvisier, Louvois, 83. B e l h o m m e , Infanterie, 2:88, 92. Jules M a z a r i n , Lettres du cardinal Mazarin pendant son Ministerx, Cheruel a n d Avenel, eds., vols. 6 - 9 (Paris: 1890-1906), 9:378, letter of 19 October 1659. B e r n a r d K r o e n e r , Les routes et les e'tapes, 177. This finding receives additional s u p p o r t in M a z a r i n , Lettres, 9:412-13, 9 N o v e m b e r 1659, t o duke de Navailles. Louis X I V , Oeuvres de Louis XIV, G r i m o a r d a n d Grouvelle, eds., 6 vols. (Paris: 1806), 3:32. A n editorial c o m m e n t criticizes Recherches as employing a d o c u m e n t designed t o exaggerate the size o f the army. Servan, Recherches, 53-54, gives t h e figure as 125,000. A G , Arch. hist. 78, feuille 165. A G , Arch. hist. 78, feuille 165, states that early in 1665 there were 805 companies of infantry (45,216 m e n ) a n d 103 companies o f cavalry (5,850 troopers). T h e army expanded over 1665 by 270 companies of infantry at fifty m e n each, making a total o f 64,566.

46

CONTEXT AND PARAMETERS

seems high.69 During the first year of the War of Devolution, Louis's personal information set the strength at about 82,000, but this may not include all garrisons.70 The careful historian Paul Sonnino estimates the size of Louis's army at 85,000 by the end of the 1667 campaign.71 The year 1668 brought even larger armies totaling i34,ooo. 72 The return to peace again caused the French to demobilize to only 70,000. 73 Louis next began to gear up for the Dutch War. In 1670, he expanded his army once again by raising 20,000 new men to bring his forces up to 90,000. 74 In 1671, additional soldiers were hired, so that in early 1672 the army reached about i2o,ooo. 75 This figure grew over the course of the year, as Louis issued orders to recruit enough troops to raise the number to i44,ooo. 76 The Dutch War high attained 279,610, as indicated by a key document from January 1678.77 This combined 219,250 infantry with 60,360 cavalry, while 116,370 of the total served in garrisons. The inevitable "reform" of the army after the Treaty of Nymwegen reduced forces to 146,980 men, officers not included, in 1679.78 This seems to have fallen to about 125,000 in 1681.79 Numbers 69

70

71

72

73 74

75

AG, A498, 5 March 1666, letter from Louvois to Pradel in Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, 4 vols. (Paris: 1862-64), 1:97. BN 4255 folios 5-8, 9-13, 177 in Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et ^organisation de Varme'e monarchique (Paris: 1906), 294, znd Michel Le Tellier et Louvois (Paris: 1942), 3i4n. AG, Bibliotheque du Ministere de Guerre, hereafter cited as BMG, Tiroirs de Louis XIV, page 36, "Etats des regiments de cavalerie en 1667"; page 37, "Etats des troupes destinees pour la garde de S. M. et pour servir dans les armees"; and pages 39-40, "Etat des troupes d'infanterie estants sur pied en l'annee 1667." Paul Sonnino, Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge: 1988), 17. As usual, Belhomme's overestimate of 178,500 infantry in December 1667 cannot be taken seriously. Belhomme, Infanterie, 2:134. AG, BMG, Tiroirs de Louis XIV, pages 46-48, "Estat des trouppes d'infanterie que le Roy a sur pied en mars 1668"; pages 50-64, "Estat des trouppes de cavalerie que le Roy a sur pied en mars 1668." S o n n i n o , Origins of the Dutch War, 127-2861. S o n n i n o , Origins of the Dutch War, 127. Servan, Recherches, 54, putting it at 131,265, allows for virtually n o demobilization at all. F o r 1671 levies see S o n n i n o , Origins of the Dutch War, 155. A G , B M G , Tiroirs de Louis XIV, pages 76-77, 4 February 1672, puts t h e French infantry in 1,287 companies with 4 4 6 c o m panies o f cavalry, a n d 2,950 additional troops in t h e royal household, b u t it m a y n o t take garrisons into account. Rousset, Louvois, 1:346-47, refers t o this d o c u m e n t a n d figures t h e

total at 120,000. 76

77

78

79

Orders issued January-March 1672 t o raise another 4 0 0 companies of infantry a n d 120 companies of cavalry, 26,000 m e n , that w o u l d make t h e total size of army 144,000 in Sonnino, Origins of the Dutch War, 177, 162. Servan, Recherches, 54, p u t t h e invading army at 176,087; clearly this is t o o high. A G , B M G , Tiroirs d e Louis XIV, page n o , " T r o u p e s q u e le R o y auvis sur pied le premier Janvier 1678." Interestingly, it is at this point that Belhomme's figures and archival sources become close; h e lists 229,970 infantry for M a y 1667. Belhomme, Infanterie, 2:206-7. A N , G 7 i774, #52, A N , G 7 i774, #52, " E t a t des troupes q u e le R o y a e u sur pied," this interesting financial d o c u m e n t details t r o o p strength for 1679, 1684, 1696, and 1699. A G , A J 687, 20 September 1681, letter from Le Pelletier t o Louvois, in Rousset, Louvois, 3:216.

ARMY GROWTH

47

increased again for the brief contest with Spain that broke out in 1683, with demobilization back to 165,000 after the Truce of Ratisbon. 80 During the Nine Years' War, the French army reached and exceeded 400,000 for the first time, at least on paper. At the start of the conflict, Louvois believed that he could field about 207,000 by late 1688, with the levies he anticipated. 81 In his UArmeeJranpaise en 1690•, Belhomme argues that forces reached 381,819 men and 23,138 officers, for a total of 404,957 that year.82 It should be remembered that in 1688 Louvois instituted the royal milice, which allowed the monarchy to conscript men to serve at the front in new provincial battalions. Here Belhomme's figures do not appear to be excessive, since other sources ascribe even greater numbers to the French army. No less an authority than Louis's great engineer, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, a man quite given to calculations and statistics, estimated royal forces in 1693 at the generous figure of 438,00c).83 A financial etat dating from the 1690s gives a detailed accounting of 343,323 infantry and 67,334 cavalry, a total of 410,657 troops, not including officers, for the year 1696.84 Adding officers to the numbers in the etat would produce a total equal to that supplied by Vauban. These sources, then, exceed the traditional figure of 400,000 French troops for the Nine Years' War; in fact, an estimate of 420,000 officers and men would not be out of place.85 According to the aforementioned etat, by early 1699 the army had fallen to about 185,716 enlisted men, after regiments had been disbanded. 86 Then, with a reduction of company strength in December 1699, the size of the army fell by about 40,000, contracting it further to 140,000 to 145,00c 87 The return of fighting in 1701 sent army size spiraling upward again. In

80

81 82

83

A N , G 7 i774, #52, sets the n u m b e r at 165,807 troops, without officers. A G , AV72, #267, in Rousset, Louvois, 3:287, puts the n u m b e r at 161,995. AG, A^oS, 8 September 1688, letter from Louvois to Asfeld, in Rousset, Louvois, 4:88. Victor Belhomme, Uarme'e francaise en 1690 (Paris: 1895). This includes the royal army at 363,154 (p. 104), the provincial militia at 24,930 (p. 119), and the local Protestant militia of Languedoc and Dauphine as 14,600 (p.119). The total does not include the local militias, as they are omitted in government totals, as AN, G 7i774, #52. Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, Oisivetes deM. de Vauban, 3 vols. (Paris: 1842-46), 2:237, 25260.

84

AN, G 7 i774, #52. Such a force would have required over 20,000 officers. The total presented here does not include 1,500 for the Hotel des Invalides and 3,080 for the arriere ban. It might also be best to cut 15,000 militia shown. If this is done, the total with officers still approaches 420,000.

85 86

87

Servan, Recherches, 58, credits Louis w i t h 395,865. A N , G 7 i774, #52. See Georges Girard, Le service militaire en France a la fin du regne de Louis XIV: Racolage et milice (1701-1715) (Paris: 1915), 4 , concerning the cut in cavalry company size from thirty-five t o twenty troopers. For reduction of 4 0 , 0 0 0 , see Girard, Racolage et milice, 4 . Compare figures in Belhomme for February and December. Belhomme, Infanterie, 2:342-43. This gives a good indication of declining numbers. Servan, Recherches, 58, gives the interwar low as 140,216.

48

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

1702, it reached 22O,5O2.88 Servan's study set the wartime high at 392,223.89 However, original sources set the number as smaller than Servan'sfigures.A detailed financial etat listing troops to be employed in 1707 supports an estimate of army size at 318,000 infantry, 39,000 cavalry, and 16,000 dragoons, for a total of 373,000 officers and men.90 This document, which does not appear to have been used by military historians before now, corroborates another much-used etat dating from 1710. It lists 319,541 infantry, including detached companies, 41,073 cavalry, and 16,491 dragoons, adding up to a total of only 377,105 troops, of whom 21,062 were officers.91 Once again, the monarchy called upon the milice^ although its conscripts no longer stayed in their own battalions at the front, but simply filled the gaps in regular regiments. These numbers fall short of justifying the traditionally accepted paper figure of 400,000 soldiers engaged as full-time troops in garrison or with the field armies; in fact, 380,000 would seem more in line with archival sources. After peace returned, the army fell back to a peacetime strength of about I33,ooo.92 Over the remaining decades of the ancien regime, the army typically echoed the figures that it had reached under Louis XIV in war and peace.93 Such is the tally of theoretical numbers; however, revisionist scholarship rightly demands that historians probe for a firmer core of reality within the inflated paper totals. D I S C O U N T I N G THE PAPER

FIGURES

By establishing the difference between the official dimensions and the actual size of units, review reports and routes provide the data necessary to discount official statements of army size. Bernard Kroener supplies the foundation of 88

89 90

91

92 93

AG, Axi579, "Memoire des trouppes que le roy a sur pied, Janvier, 1702" in Girard, Racolage et milice, pp. 5-7. S e r v a n , Rccherches, 58-59. AN, G7i78o, #212, "Etat des regiments d'infanterie, cavalerie et dragons, companies d'infanteries separees, companies de fusilliers des officers majors des places et des partisans et autres troupes qui seront au service du Roy pendant la campagne 1707." This valuable document lists companies and regiments, not men. The figure of 373,000 resulted from: (1) multiplying listed units by their official size; (2) using AG, MR 1701, #13, to supply figures for certain regiments that were not included, most notably the Swiss line infantry and the regiments of guards; and (3) also using AG, MR 1701, #13, to provide a basis for calculating the number of officers. AG, MR 1701, #13, "Estat contenant le nombre des officers, des soldats, des cavaliers, et des dragons dont les regimens etoient sur pied en 1710." It lists 336,918 men and 21,062 officers, plus 425 detached companies of 45 men each, totaling 19,125 men. If an additional 1,275 officers are added to the total to account for the detached companies, the total would reach 378,380. Servan, Recherches, 6 0 . See t h e discussion o f army size from 1715 t o 1789 in J o h n A. Lynn, " T h e Pattern of A r m y G r o w t h , 1445-1945," in J o h n A. Lynn, ed., The Tools of War: Ideas, Instruments, and Institutions of Warfare, 144S-1871 (Urbana, I L : 1990), 3 - 4 .

ARMY GROWTH

49

this effort by compiling review reports that establish the average number of men actually present under arms in French infantry and cavalry companies during 1635-60.94 A second data set compiled from archival sources for this chapter covers the remainder of the grand siecle. Since the most crucial figures for the first half of the seventeenth century, and those best documented in the controles, come from the period 1635-39, these five years deserve the most attention. Unfortunately, Kroener's treatments of 1635 and 1636 are somewhat in error. On average, the infantry companies that he studied for 1635 claimed 43 men present; however, he mistakenly assumes that regulation company strength for French foot in both 1635 and 1636 was 50 men when it was, in fact, 100.95 Thus, while he put the infantry at a suspiciously high 86 percent of regulation strength, they actually stood at only 43 percent. This lower figure tallies much better with the percentage for cavalry companies, which only reached 46 percent of official strength. Pursuing this line even further, in 1636, usually accepted as a high point for the army as it massed to repel a Spanish invasion, Kroener's sample suggests an infantry company strength of only 35 percent with cavalry at 38 percent. Combining the corrected version of Kroener's numbers with theoretical highs taken from financial controles results in some unexpected findings. The discounted size of the army in 1635 falls to about 72,000 troops. This seems a small figure, particularly in light of the fact that Richelieu already believed that 89,000 men had been massed before the end of 1634.96 If Kroener's sample can be trusted, not only was the army of 1635 small, but it was not exceeded by the forces assembled in 1636. The situation changed greatly during 1638-39, years for which Kroener's methods seem both clear and correct. For these two years, the infantry complement rose to 60 percent and 72 percent, and cavalry stood at 45 percent and 70 percent. Such full ranks make 1639 the year of highest troop strength, with a very substantial 152,000 men. 97 It should be noted that Andre Corvisier also employed Kroener's work to calculate actual numbers, but Corvisier erred by accepting Belhomme's inflated estimates as the raw data to be discounted. As a result, Corvisier credits infantry alone with a discounted size of 166,320 soldiers for 1639; the addition of similarly elevated cavalry figures would drive the estimate for the total army above 2oo,ooo. 98 Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 177-78. He seems to arrive at this incorrect official size by reading backward from winter-quarters regulations for 1637. Kroener, "Die Entwicklung der Truppenstarken," 169. On 100-man companies, see Richelieu, Testamentpolitique, ed. Louis Andre (Paris: 1947), 478; AG, A*32, #250, 1636; and AG, A*29, fol. 219, 13 September 1636. I thank David Parrott for supplying these last two archival references. Avenel, Lettres, 4:601, 13 September 1634, Richelieu to the king. BN, f. fr. 17555, fol-1, "Etat des troupes tant d'infanterie que de cavalerie dont seron composees les armees du roy durant l'annee 1639," in Kroener, "Die Entwicklung der Truppenstarken," 203. Contamine, Histoire militaire^ 1:364.

5O

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

Given the great variety between the lows and highs generated by Kroener's percentages, perhaps a safer course might be not to accept his exact estimates year by year but to take them as a basis to arrive at a general discount rate to cover the first critical five years of the war. A straight mathematical average of Kroener's corrected estimates results in a discount rate of 57 percent. At one point in his own work, David Parrott proposes an estimate built upon Kroener's original figures and his own examination of reports from field armies: "The forces maintained by France were probably 50 percent smaller than the sweeping estimates of 130-150,000 soldiers that have been proposed."99 Here Parrott echoes Richelieu, who commented, cc[I]f one wants to have fifty thousand effectives, it is necessary to levy one hundred, counting a regiment of twenty companies that ought to have 2,000 men as only i,ooo." 100 Parrott then further reduces the actual number by assuming a 25 percent error caused by officers padding their companies with phony soldiers, passe volants^ to make their companies look bigger at reviews. With all these deductions, he pulls down the traditional figure of 150,000 for 1635 to 50,000-55,000.101 But Parrott cites varying figures in somewhat different contexts in such a way that they can be read, and cited, to support conflicting theses. At another point, he credits the real force with about 70,000 troops, at least for the first half of the campaign. 102 And both figures need to be put in the context of his overall estimate: "Aside from the exceptional, by definition, temporary, peaks in troop strength, such as that of summer 1636, the French army was rarely of more than 60-70,000 infantry and 15-20,000 cavalry during the 1630s."103 Accepting this last, and most authoritative, set of figures produces a total of 75,000 to 90,000 troops, which he would peg even higher in 1636.104 While there is no simple mechanical method to manufacture a discount rate from the foregoing findings and claims, an overview of the best research suggests that a rate of 60 percent provides the most reasonable guide. This is the discount rate that Corvisier accepts, and even Parrott gives it credence as the contemporary principle of "douze pour vingt? the belief that to secure twelve men in the ranks, it was necessary to issue commissions to recruit twenty.105 Multiplying official tallies for 1636 and 1639 by this discount yields 99

Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 135. Richelieu, Testament politique^ 478. 101 p a r r o t t , "The Administration of the French Army," 135. Here he states that this is the possible maximum maintained "consistently" through 1635. 102 p a r r o t t ? "The Administration of the French Army," n o - u i . 103 p a r r o t 1 - 5 "The Administration of the French Army," iv. 104 In a letter of 2 August 1992, he stated that his 70,000 estimate for 1635 was "well on the way to the 80-100,000 that I suggest is the size offeree which the government is striving to maintain from 1636." 105 Corvisier, Louvois, 82 and Corvisier in Lucien Bely et al., Guerre etpaix dans PEurope du XVIIe sierte, 2 vols., Regards sur Vhistoire, vols. 77-78 (Paris, 1991), 1:14. AAE, France, 814, fol. 262, 14 July 1635 and AAE, France, 828, fols. 265-862, etat of troops for 1637, in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 111. Mazarin's correspondence also seems to justify the

100

ARMY

GROWTH

51

a high point for the war of about 125,000 men. Such an estimate falls between the extremes generated by Kroener's modified numbers. Moreover, it even approaches Parrott's second estimate of 75,000 to 90,000, when adjusted for extreme wartime peaks, such as occurred in 1636 and 1639. Adopting 125,000 as a wartime peak for the war with Spain might even be credited as an act of moderation, since a case could be made for a top figure of 152,000 in 1639. Turning to the data collected for this chapter, the next discounted wartime high dates from the Dutch War, since data for the War of Devolution is very thin. 106 According to a sample of 155 companies, in 1676-77, when a French infantry company was supposed to number 50 men, actual companies mustered a surprisingly high average of 44.4 men, or 89 percent of full strength. 107 As strange as this may seem, it accords with Louis's own evaluation, since he argued in 1667 for a discount of 85 percent.108 Cavalry companies were even more likely to fill up, mounting 96 percent of their full complement of 50.109 This very high percentage of cavaliers in a unit was typical of the personal reign of Louis XIV. Three factors explain this phenomenon: (1) the much greater prestige of service in the cavalry, (2) the larger recruitment bounties paid to cavalrymen, and (3) the higher salaries they earned. As a result of these three factors, cavalry regiments had their pick of men, meeting their goals before infantry units did. Using these percentages in conjunction with paper figures for peak size during the Dutch War leads to an estimate of 253,000 actual troops. This figure certainly seems high; it may result from the fact that the sample dates from the end of winter quarters, when recruits had just been added and units enjoyed their maximum strength of the year. In any case, the numbers show units far closer to their theoretical strength than they had been before 1659. With the return of peace, reviews of 171 companies in garrison in Italy in 1682 suggest that companies approached full strength during the period of half war/half peace that was the 1680s.110 With such high percentages, the official

106

107

108

109 110

douze pour vinpft rule. Mazarin, Lettres^ 6:151, Mazarin to Besmaux, 17 April 1654 and 6:186, 22 June 1654, to Talon. See the numerous routes preserved in Amiens, EE 392, March 1676, plus the following: Nord, C 2321, 6 October 1672; SHAT, Bib., A lb i628, vol. 2, 5-7, 9-10, 13-15, 17-19, 21-23, 25-27, 33-35, 65-67, 69-71; AG, AX295, #86; and AN, G7i774, #10, #11. See AG, MR 1972, for the figure of 50 men per infantry company. Puysegur and Belhomme also use the figure of 50. "I counted always on a real strength [pied] much less than the declared one [effectif], because I knew how a fall in numbers always occurs when troops have been on campaign a while. So that in place of the 40,000 men that I can comfortably send [faire marcher] [on campaign], I count only on 35,000." Louis XIV, Memoires, 2:306. Supplement for 1667. Francois Sicard, Histoire des institutions militaires des franfais, vol. 2 (Paris: 1834), 433. In 1682, the infantry companies in question boasted at least 84 percent of a full complement, while mounted companies reached 77 percent for regular cavalry and 98 percent for dragoons. AN, Z l c 4i4, August 1682, December 1682. The fact that all the mounted units were reviewed in December, the depths of winter quarters, may explain their weaker numbers. On company sizes, see AN, G 7i774, #2 and AG, Arch, hist., 78, fol. 166-68.

52

CONTEXT

AND

PARAMETERS

figure of about 150,000 men in the peacetime army need be pared down only to roughly 120,000 in real terms. The Nine Years' War provides some of the most interesting discoveries. Early in the war, 1689-92, company strengths ran fairly high once again. A sample of 226 companies, all of which passed through Amiens and left routes in their wake, reveals an average infantry company of 42.2 men and sergeants, or 84 percent of the official full strength of 50.111 A small sample from Burgundy and a very large one that marched through in Alsace, 1691-92, correspond with the Amiens numbers. The 40 companies from Burgundy stood at an average of only 33.5, but this low figure results from the inclusion of one particularly understrength regiment; without it, the average rises to 39.o.112 The massive sample of units receiving etapes in Alsace must be handled with great care, since the accountants listed several regiments as full that were not. Using only the most solid listings, the Alsace sample still consists of 416 companies, and these records suggest an average of about 41 men per company, or 82 percent.113 The 57 cavalry companies from six different regiments listed on Amiens routes averaged 34.9 men, or 87 percent of official strength of 40; dragoons had essentially full complements of 40. 114 A sample of 90 cavalry companies that rode through Alsace during the first half of 1691 numbered 36.3 men per company, or 90.1 percent full strength; 47 dragoon companies averaged out at 37.4, or 93.5 percent. 115 Later, in 1695-96, the percentages had not changed much, according to a sample of 523 companies all from Amiens routes. French infantry battalions, which had included 16 companies in 1690, now claimed only 13 companies, but they were a bit larger at 55 men per company.116 These, in fact, stood at 111

Amiens, EE 394, EE 395, EE 396. On infantry company size ca. 1690 see Belhomme, Varmee frangaise en 1690, 11-12, and AG, MR 1972. 112 Dijon, H 228, 8 February 1692; Dijon, H 228, 8 February 1692; and Cote d'Or, C 3675, 23 January 1693. The Manlevine (?) regiment passing through Dijon had a company strength of only 22.1. 113 BN, f. fr. 4565-4567, three "estat et compte . . . de la fourniture des estappes" presented to la Grange, conseiller du roi, covering the months from April 1691 to March 1692. These formal accounts listing over 1,200 companies seem to follow an administrative convenience of showing as completely full, battalions that almost certainly were not. This is unmistakably the case in some instances that listed a regiment at partial strength on one day and full on the next, at a time when replacements would not have been arriving at the front. It would appear that allowances were awarded at full strength to compensate officers for building up their companies. So to make use of the Alsace account books without skewing the sample, I have excluded from my count any infantry companies listed as 48 through 50. This reduces the sample to only 416 companies, which averaged 40.9 men. My thanks to Dr. David Stewart of Hillsdale College, who acted as my research assistant to run down these figures. 114 On cavalry company size during 1688-97, see Belhomme, Uarme'efrangaiseen 1690, 86, 100; and AN, G7i774, #52, seems to count normal cavalry and dragoon companies at 45 men in 1696. Puysegur is not reliable on shifting company size in Louis's last two wars. 115 BN, f. fr. 4566. These mounted units had to be treated much as had the accounts of infantry, so only 137 companies were used in the sample. 116 Col. des ord., vol. 28, #38, 1 December 1692; AN, G7i774, #52, "Etat des troupes que le Roy a eu sur pied"; AG Bib Aih 638 tome II.

ARMY

GROWTH

53

43.8, or 80 percent of capacity.117 Milice companies, theoretically at 60, had 50.2, or 83.7 percent;118 cavalry and dragoons claimed 35.5 and 35.3, respectively, or 88.8 and 88.3 percent of a full complement each, if the regulation size remained 40 men per company. 119 The etapes documents employed for the Nine Years' War do not simply date from the spring, when regiments had just incorporated recruits, but from the fall as well, when regiments would be at a relatively weak point. The balance seems reasonable. Therefore, if one accepts that theoretical size stood as high as 420,000 in 1696, a sixth of which would have been cavalry, the real count could have reached 340,000. During the few years between the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, the official number of men in French companies fell somewhat, but the percentage at full strength rose. In 1700, French line infantry companies, which were then set at 35 by regulation, averaged out at 35.1 men per company in the 39 companies of the sample.120 Cavalry companies, which in December 1699 were officially reduced to only 20 troopers each, showed 20.3 men present, so their numbers topped 100 percent of full strength.121 Putting all this together fully justifies the estimate of total troop strength at about 140,000 men. With the return of war, an exhausted France mobilized once again, but it did not reach the level of forces that it had attained in the previous contest. A sample of 240 infantry companies that passed though Amiens and Lille puts the size of the average company at only 32.3 in 1702-4. 122 This, at a time when regulation size was 45, meant real companies were only 72 percent of full size.123 A much smaller sample of only 16 cavalry companies again shows them at very near their regulation strength of 35. With 34.1 men per company, they mounted 97 percent of theoretical size.124 117 118

119

120

121 122

123

124

Amiens, EE 403, EE 405. An ordinance of 12 December 1691 raised the size of milice companies from 50 to 60. Leon Hennet, Les milices et les troupes provinciates (Paris: 1884), 32. AN, G7i774, #52, suggests that the regulation size of a cavalry company had dropped to 35 in 1696. Four companies per squadron seemed to stay the rule throughout the war. Belhomme, Uarmee franpaise en 1690, 86, 100; Amiens, EE 405. If figured on a theoretical company strength of 35, the cavalry would have been essentially complete, and estimates of total army size thus would be even higher. I have again adopted the conservative course and opted for the larger company size, although this may be an error. Lille, 11,113, 10 & 24 October, 7 & 8 November, and 2, 12 & 26 December 1700. For regulation company size, see AG, MR 1972, #7. For changes in company size in 1699, see Girard, Racolage et milice, 4. Amiens, EE 411, EE 412; Lille, 11,113, 5 & 26 March, 4 April 1702; see, as well, Girard, Georges, ed., "Un soldat de Malplaquet: Lettres du capitaine de Saint-Mayme," Carnet de Sabretache (1922), 515. David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (New York: 1976), 97, refers to a British document that assumed that French companies included 42 men, but this seems to be an overestimate. Infantry company size stood at 45 until the regulation of 20 September 1710 raised it to 50. G i r a r d , Racolage et milice, 11. Chandler, The Art of Warfare, 45, cites a British report of 1706 that states that a French squadron ran about 140 on campaign, or four companies of 32 men and 3 officers each.

54

CONTEXT AND

PARAMETERS

By late in the war, 1709-11, infantry and cavalry companies had declined somewhat. The large and varied sample of companies used here includes 1,284 French companies listed in routes from Amiens, review reports from Dijon, and tallies of front-line units reported in military correspondence. 125 French infantry companies changed in size during the war; until 1710, they stood at 45 men, but a regulation of that year raised their size to 50 soldiers.126 The average company strength of 31.2 means that infantry was 62 to 69 percent complete. Cavalry and dragoons were again organized in companies of 35 men; but in reality, cavalry companies stood at 30.5, or 87 percent, and dragoons at 31.1, or 89 percent. The sources that generate these estimates deserve some discussion, since they lead to important conclusions. Documents from Amiens, Dijon, and the front showed roughly similar company sizes. The average number of men in infantry companies moving through Amiens was 29.9, whereas it rose to 34.0 in Dijon reports. 127 This is a significant difference, to be sure, but it only amounts to 8 percent in a company of 50 men. Another key document is the ccEtat de la force de quarantedeux battalions et de ce qu'on leur donne de recrues,5' dated 17 September 1709, but it requires some interpretation, since the battalions listed had just suffered casualties at the bloody battle of Malplaquet. Approximate battalion size before the battle can be reconstructed by allowing for the casualty rates of these battalions. This method yields an average company of 31.9 men. 128 Interpreting the document in another fashion, one can add in the number of replacements assigned to each battalion to arrive at a new company strength 125

126 127

128

Amiens, EE 421, EE 423, EE 424, EE 427, EE 432; Dijon, H 243, H 244; AG, A*2i52, #208, 17 September 1709, "Etat de la force de quarante-deux battalions et de ce qu'on leur donne de recrues," in Vault and Pelet, ed., Memoires militaires relatifs a la succession d'Espagne sous Louis XIV, vol. 9 (Paris: 1855), 383; AG, A*22i4, 10 April 1710, letter from d'Alborgessy, review of troops being sent to Douai. Regulation of 20 September 1710, Girard, Racolage et milice, 10-11. The larger Dijon figure is explained by the passage through Dijon of one large and probably new regiment enjoying a nearly full complement. Dijon, H244, 6-7 May 1710. In early August, the army of Flanders claimed 128 battalions of infantry. See AG, Ax2i52, #31, "Disposition de l'infanterie," in Vault and Pelet, Memoires militaires, 333-34- Detailed casualty reports for officers at Malplaquet suggest that the battalions of the 17 September review suffered average casualties on the same level as the other battalions in the army. (There was no detailed accounting of casualties among enlisted ranks.) See AG, A :2i52, #225, "Etat des officiers tues, blesses et prisonniers a la bataille de Malplaquet," in Vault and Pelet, Memoires militaires, 378-81. The average battalion in the army suffered 9.8 officers killed and wounded, while these 37 suffered 10.3. Consequently, it is reasonable to argue that the battalions suffered no more than an average number of casualties in the ranks. If 11,000 is a reasonable estimate for French casualties at Malplaquet, the infantry alone would perhaps have lost two thirds of these men. Gaston Bodart, Militar-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon, 1618-190S (Vienna and Leipzig: 1908), 160; Claude G. Sturgill, Marshal Villars and the War of the Spanish Succession (Lexington, KY: 1965), 98. (It should be remembered that there was very heavy cavalry fighting and great losses at Malplaquet.) So infantry losses can be roughly estimated at 7,330; and each battalion lost on average about 57 men (7330/120). This would mean that the sample that claimed an average company strength of 27.2 after Malplaquet probably was up to 31.9 before the action.

55

ARMY GROWTH Table 2.1. The growth of the French Army, 1445-1750. Theoretical peace high

Time period or war 1445-75 Second half of the 15th Century 1490 1540s & 1550s 1567-68 Early 1570s Wars of Religion, 1589-98 1600-10 1610, as planned 1610-15 Thirty Years' War, 1635^8 1660-66 War of Devolution, 1667-68 Dutch War, 1672-78 1678-88 Nine Years'War, 1688-97 1698-1700 War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-14 1715-25 War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-48 1749-56

Theoretical war high

Discounted war high

14,000 40-45,000 17,100

70-80,000 80,000

60-70,000? 70,000?

12,700 50-60,000 10,000 55,000 10,000

200,000

125,000

134,000 279,600

253,000

420,000

340,000

380,000

255,000

72,000 165,000 140-145,000 130-160,000 390,000 160,000

of 30.9. A second battlefield report listing units to be sent to Douai in April 1710 shows company strength down to 28.2.129 Using the sample collected for this study to discount army size stated in 1707 and 1710 yields a figure of about 255,000 troops. This is much smaller than the 340,000 estimated for the Nine Years' War. Remember, both figures are only estimates and discount the army on the basis of percentages for only French regiments; therefore, they may understate the totals somewhat, since foreign regiments in French service tended to be closer to their full complements than were native units. COMPARING RESULTS: REVISIONISM REVISED With the discountedfiguresin hand, it is possible to make certain judgments concerning the pattern of military expansion during xhcjjrtmd siecle. [See Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1.] Most importantly, the data presented here demonstrate 129

AG, Ahu^ #107, 10 April 1710, letter from d'Alborgessy, review of troops being sent to Douai. Claude Sturgill overstates the weakness of battalions under Villars, saying that they declined to 250 men. The documents that he cites to support this conclusion do not justify it. Sturgill, Marshal Villars, 101-2.

CONTEXT

400,000 350,000 300,000

AND

PARAMETERS

| j Peacetime army size g Theoretical wartime size, paper strength I Discounted real wartime size, when possible to estimate

250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000

1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 Figure 2.1. The growth of the French army, 1445-1750.

1700

1750

that with the onset of war in 1635, royal forces increased significantly over previous levels. Their expansion ought to be measured against a baseline of wartime highs, 1495-1610, which repeatedly reached 50,000 and peaked at 80,000 on occasion before 1570. If such levels are compared with theoretical maximums of 205,000 to 211,000 soldiers during the period 1635-48, the increase ranges from 250 percent to 400 percent. But this would not be a fair comparison, since the key figures for the earlier period presented here are closer to actual than theoretical maximums. The discounted totals for 163542 arrived at earlier reduce the peak size of the army to 125,000. Consequently, even if the 50,000-80,000 total for the period before 1610 is taken without discount, the army raised under Richelieu was still at least 60 percent larger than anything that preceded it, and if the earlier tallies are discounted by as little as 10 percent, which seems reasonable, even modest, then one has to conclude that the army of 1635-42 exceeded sixteenth-century highs by at least 75 percent. In addition, the army created in 1635 doubled the size of any royal French force mobilized since 1570. Such increases may not equal the extreme estimates of some historians, but they still constitute a quantum leap upward. The contrast between the 55,000 troops that Henri IV intended to raise for his struggle with Spain in 1610 and the 150,000 that Louis XIII tried to mobilize against the same enemy in 1635 highlights the military expansion of the first half of the seventeenth century. In his dissertation, David Parrott makes a strong case that the Richelieu ministry clumsily improvised its way through the daunting task of supporting its army without engaging in substantial reform. Parrott believes that the army did not grow enough to impose reform upon the government; moreover,

ARMY

GROWTH

57

he seems to assume that if the army existed at a given size, it had to be supported by the government at that size. Yet the French monarchy fielded armies larger than it could maintain from its own resources. At this critical juncture, the army relied upon its own methods to make ends meet. For one thing, the monarchy called upon the personalfinancialresources of the officers, who contributed to the maintenance of their own commands, as will be established in Chapter 7. For another, despite official protests, soldiers took for themselves what the state failed to supply; in short, they pillaged, as discussed in Chapter 6. The chaos and horrors typical of the war between France and Spain came precisely because the army grew substantially, not because it did not grow enough to precipitate reform. Jeremy Black would uncouple the reforms that occurred after 1659 from the strains exerted by army growth before that date. Yet while the expansion of the army during 1635-59 may have been less impressive than that which came later in sheer numerical terms, the earlier growth clearly caused greater institutional and social crisis. Without the turmoil that France suffered as a consequence of war and military expansion before the Peace of the Pyrenees or, to be more specific, without the desire to avoid similar disasters in the future, her later stability seems unaccountable. Tumult was as important a spur to institutional change in France as was the abuse of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War to the creation of the state and army of the Great Elector after 1648. While military expansion before 1659 rates as substantial, that occurring after 1659 was staggering. Theoretical maximums reached 420,000 during the Nine Years' War, while discounted figures for the same war set the number of troops under arms as about 340,000. Measured by either scale, this was unparalleled. By the end of the century, theoretical wartime levels had increased 500 to 800 percent over the peaks of the sixteenth century. Discounted tallies rose 400 to 700 percent. Peacetime levels rose by even greater percentages; if theoretical peacetime figures before 1610 were normally between 10,000 and 20,000, the peacetime strength after 1679 hovered between 130,000 and 150,000, an increase of 650 percent to 1,500 percent! The expansion of the army during the War of the Spanish Succession (when discounted regular army strength only reached 255,000) did not match that attained during the Nine Years' War. This happened despite the fact that the paper figures for both wars hovered in the range of 400,000. On reflection, this makes sense. The number of troops that the state could support depended directly upon the amount of wealth that the monarchy could mobilize for its army, and Louis XIV had run out of resources. First, the Nine Years' War had exhausted government finance. Second, the potential to raise "contributions," or war taxes, on occupied territory decreased as repeated defeats drove French forces back to their own borders in the northeast. And third, the traditional recourse of relying upon aristocratic officers to maintain their units out of pocket had already overtaxed noble fortunes in the previous war, so that particular well was going dry.

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The numbers do not support Corvisier's thesis that the forces raised under Louis XIV matched those levied in 1794, the height of Republican defense. To his count of 300,000 troops in regular French regiments, Corvisier adds naval forces, bourgeois militias, and coast guards to yield a grand total of 600,000. If the point that Corvisier wishes to make is that far more men bore arms than a simple tally of soldiers would indicate, he makes his point admirably. Yet it is another matter to compare this to the national defense mounted by the Revolutionary regime. If one adds together numbers in this fashion for Louis XIV, one must do it for the Revolution, and the sum of the army, navy, National Guard, and armees revolutionaries in 1793-94 would greatly surpass anything under Louis XIV.130 Returning the focus to frontline troops only, once the levee en masse had raked in its bounty of recruits, the French had mobilized 1,169,000 men by the late summer of 1794, and it has become almost traditional to discount this to 750,000 men actually under arms.131 This far exceeds the 255,000 army troops credited here to Louis XTV for 170 9-11.

If calculated as percentages of French population, the forces marshaled by the Republic are also far more impressive than those that served Louis XIV. If the population of France stood at 21,500,000 in 1700, then the amount of troops maintained for each 1,000 of population was 15.8 in 1696 and 13.4 in 1710.132 Since the French population rose to about 28,600,000 by 1790, an army of 750,000 meant that the French fielded 26.2 soldiers per thousand of population. And if one took into account only Frenchmen mobilized to fight for their king during the ancien regime, the disparity would be even greater, since Louis XTV recruited many soldiers from outside France. A CAVEAT: BEYOND THE

NUMBERS

All the attention given here to figures should not obscure the point that the contrast between the seventeenth-century army and its predecessor was more than just a matter of how many more soldiers served Louis XIV than fought for Francois I. Beyond the simple question of size, the army changed in character over time, evolving from an aggregate contract to a state commission force, and it could be argued that this evolution mattered as much or more than did numbers alone. "Off-the-shelf55 units raised by contract with their captains relinquished pride of place to regiments recruited by officers carrying the king's commission. In the state commission army, new recruits fleshed out established French regiments or stood to colors in entirely new 130

131

132

The National Guard alone was supposed to provide a reserve of 1,200,000 men in 1789. Jacques Godechot, Institutions de la France sous la Revolution et VEmpire (Paris: 1968), 133. Godechot, Institutions de la France, 362. Both Godechot and Jean-Paul Bertaud, La Revolution armee (Paris: 1979), 137-39, work with the 750,000-man figure. J. Dupaquier, ed. Histoire de la populationfranpaise,vol. 2 (Paris: 1988), 64-65. Dupaquier's figures somewhat overstate the French population in 1700, since they are based on the modern borders of France.

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units when war came. The government equipped, fed, and paid the common soldier while he learned his profession, and it characteristically took many months before such an army was ready to go into action at full force. Moreover, regiments served summer and winter, as long as the war lasted. Thus, as opposed to assembling an army from "spare parts" for a particular campaign, the Bourbon state created and maintained an army in being that put a consequently greater burden on finance and administration in the long run. Over and above the great increase in numbers, saying that Francois I mustered 80,000 troops in the late summer of 1544 means something very different from saying that Louis XIV commanded 420,000 in 1696. H Y P O T H E S I S ON WARTIME F O R C E S : R E S O U R C E S AND AMBITIOUS POLICY While the growth of the French army over the course of thejjrand siecle is both undeniable and obvious, the reasons that explain that growth are far less obvious, and they probably lie outside the scope of this volume of institutional military history. However, since some historians have attempted to explain that growth in simple and sufficient military terms, this study cannot entirely sidestep the challenge of explaining the army's expansion. Over the past two decades, Geoffrey Parker has repeatedly accounted for the growth of early modern European armies by reference to the creation and spread of a style of fortress created in Italy during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. This trace italienne employed the bastion to render fortifications far less vulnerable to armies equipped with the more plentiful and much improved artillery of the age. He first stated his thesis in a 1976 article, "The 'Military Revolution' 1560-1660 - a Myth?," and more recently updated it in The Military Revolution. When he rhetorically asks why the Military Revolution came to different parts of Europe at different times, he replies: ccThe key variable appears to have been the presence or absence of the trace italienne in a given area, for where no bastions existed, wars of maneuver with smaller armies were still feasible."133 He insists that fortresses drove up army size in two manners. In his earlier article, Parker stresses the huge numbers of troops required to besiege a fortress.134 In his later book, he emphasizes the need to garrison great lines of fortresses more than the need to starve out or storm individual works.135 In fact, an examination of the size of forces required by siege warfare reveals that the amount of troops devoted to the actual work of a siege did not increase.136 According to a data base including 135 sieges, from the 133 135 136

Parker, Military Revolution, 24. 134 Parker, "The 'Military Revolution,'" 208. Parker, Military Revolution, 39-40. For a more complete critique of the Parker thesis on the trace italienne, see John A. Lynn, "The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies: The French Case," Journal of Military History, July 1991, 297-330. This article is reprinted in a somewhat expanded form in Cliff Rogers,

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middle of thefifteenthcentury, the attacking armies in sieges involving French troops most commonly numbered 20,000 to 40,000.137 Vauban believed that the minimum reasonable force required to hold even short lines of circumvallation was about 20,000, and in most cases this rough estimate held true.138 All in all, there is little evidence that offensive siege operations account for army growth, at least in the case of the French army. Perhaps the best explanation for the rapid expansion of the seventeenth century combines a number of factors. France had increased in population and wealth by the grand siecle. It is interesting to note that the French army only expanded modestly from 1445 to 1635, yet during those two centuries, Europe restored the population lost to the plague in the late Middle Ages. Demographic growth created the potential for eventual military expansion, like a great wound spring awaiting a release. Population increase also created the economic base to sustain larger armies. This is particularly true of agriculture, for with a greater number of productive peasants at work, the surplus that could be extracted in taxes, requisition, or pillage increased. In addition, the mercantile wealth of Europe expanded, through fulfilling the needs of a greater European population and exploiting the riches of world trade and imperialism. This produced wealth, credit institutions that mobilized that wealth, and urban development. Parker's assertion that large armies and fortresses occurred in the same places at the same time could be explained by insisting that the two were results of a similar economic-political-strategic complex. For fortifications to lie thick on the ground, the area in question must be populated by the cities, or at least large towns, that required fortifications. And the walled cities had to be rich enough to contribute substantially to the construction of their modern defenses. Even then, it would be foolish to invest in fortifications were the area not strategically open to repeated attack. Now an area that was urbanized, wealthy, and in danger might well spawn both fortifications and large armies. The search for the trigger that activated the potential created by demography and economics leads to French international ambition. Richelieu and Mazarin adopted international goals designed first to forestall Spain and later to bring her down. This involved taking on the greatest power in Europe on battlefields from Italy to the Netherlands, and to do so required the mobilization of armies and resources on a far greater level than ever before. Richelieu resolved to raise an army whose size matched his goals: "Many princes have lost their countries and ruined their subjects by failing to

137 138

ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder, CO: 1995), 169-99. Lynn, "The trace italienne and the Growth of Armies," 324-28. Vauban, Oeuvres, 1:33. St. Rimy, an artillery authority of the late seventeenth century, stated that 40,000 troops were sufficient for most siege operations. Chandler, The Art of Warfare, 241. So perhaps 20,000 to 40,000 should be the range. This certainly fits the figures.

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maintain sufficient military forces for their protection, fearing to tax them too heavily."139 Louis XIV pursued a foreign policy even more ambitious than those of the strong first ministers who manipulated the international scene before 1661. Richelieu and Mazarin had succeeded to a large degree in isolating their enemies and gaining allies. In contrast, Louis's brutal methods and obsession with the absolute security of France eventually isolated France and united the Grand Alliance to oppose him. Gone was the standing of France as the guarantor of German liberties, the natural ally of the Dutch, and the occasional friend of England. As early as the Dutch War, Louis confronted a combination of enemies greater than he had anticipated; consequently, the forces he committed to the war at first proved to be insufficient. At the close of 1672, Conde urged Louvois to put more troops in the field, because the French had to contend with not only the Dutch but the German states and the Spanish as well.140 The pressures only became worse. In hisfinaltwo conflicts, Louis XIV pursued military operations in four separate theaters in order to fight off his many enemies. On this point, Vauban makes a good witness. Repeatedly he expressed concern that more troops had to be marshaled in field armies to match the foes of Louis XIV. As is shown later, he argued that the number of fortifications be limited so that garrison forces could be liberated for field duty: "However great the forces of the kingdom, one ought not to imagine that it alone can furnish troops to guard and maintain so many fortresses and at the same time put armies in the field as great as those of Spain, Italy, England, Holland and the Empire joined together."141 In a sense, Louis took heed of Vauban's logic, if not of his conclusions. The Sun King did not sacrifice his fortresses and their garrisons as Vauban proposed, but instead created the 400,000-man army to ensure his jjloire. At that level, the army was at the breaking point of the resource base that the monarchy could tap; not until the French Revolution would the French put more troops in the field. The fact that Louis could not match his armies of the Nine Years' War during the War of the Spanish Succession because he had already expended the resources to do so simply adds to the power of this argument. HYPOTHESIS ON PEACETIME FORCES: THE DEMANDS OF GARRISONS If the preceding assertions are true, then the increasing wartime strength of the French army during the grand siecle did not result from the intricacies 139 140

141

Cardinal Richelieu in Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State (New York: 1994), 63. 12 December 1672 letter from Conde to Louvois in Griffet, Recueil des lettres pour servir d'eclaircissement a Vhistoire militaire du regne de Louis XW, vol. 2 (Paris: 1760), 143-50. SHAT, Bib., Gen. 11 (fol.), Vauban, "Les places fortifiees du Royaume," fol. 12 ver.

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of the trace italienne and the demands of siege warfare. However, this leaves open the stronger possibility that peacetime army size might still have been driven up by the need to garrison France's fortified frontier. The number of troops committed to garrison duty multiplied during the grand, siecle. As France entered its war with Spain in 1635-36, frontier garrisons consumed only about 30,000 soldiers.142 Figures from the era of the War of Devolution echo this level. Louvois reported in 1666 that 25,000 men garrisoned the frontier fortresses at a time when he counted total troop strength at 72,000.143 Later, both the number and percentage of troops devoted to garrison duty climbed. An etat dated 1 January 1678 lists 279,610 troops under arms, of which 116,370 stood behind walls.144 In a highly detailed memoir drawn up early in the Nine Years5 War, Vauban claimed that fortresses and fortified posts throughout France swallowed up 166,000 troops.145 A second report drafted in 1705 increased the total to 173,000 infantry and cavalry.146 Vauban thus put garrison forces at 40 to 45 percent of total theoretical wartime strength. By the 1670s, military opinion insisted that it was unacceptable to maintain a fortress without a suitable garrison, and from this assumption it followed that the number and size of fortifications dictated a minimum size for the army. Not to staff a fortress on the frontier was to offer a defensive position to the enemy, who could take the works with a small force that, once ensconced, could do infinitely more damage than its modest numbers might imply.147 If a fortress existed, it demanded a garrison, but this tied up troops that might be used in field armies. In 1644, Turenne feared that, "in putting the infantry necessary in the fortresses there will not remain any for the campaign."148 Consequently, there was pressure to limit the number of forts in order to free up troops. More than one authority argued for the abandonment and dismantling of unnecessary strongholds. As early as 1675, 142 143 144 145

146

147

148

Documents cited in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 94. AG, A*i98, 5 March 1666, letter from Louvois to Pradel. SHAT, Bib., Tiroirs de Louis XIV, etat of 1 January 1678. SHAT, Bib., Gen. 11 (fol.), Vauban, "Les places fortifiees du Royaume avec les garnisons necessaires a leur garde ordinaire en temps de guerre." This document is without date, but marginal notes, apparently by an archivist, date the document as ca. 1690 based on the fortresses mentioned. Gaya in 1692 produces a list of "villes, citadelles, forts, & reduits o\x le Roy entretient garnisons," and if citadels are counted, the garrisons listed number 203, which corroberates Vauban. Louis de Gaya, Le nouvel art de la guerre et la maniere dont on la fait aujourd'huy en France (Paris: 1692), 249-61. SHAT, Bib., Genie 11 (fol.), Vauban memoirs, "Etat general des places forts du royaume," dated November 1705. Derek Croxton discusses the fate of fortresses in 1644 and 1645 that fell quickly because they were defended by small garrisons or by none at all. Charles Derek Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643-1648," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995, 73, 108. Letter from Turenne to Mazarin, 3 September 1644, in Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe," 164.

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Vauban urged elimination of forts to save manpower: "It seems to me that the King has only too many advanced places; if he had fewer, five or six that I know well, it would be stronger by 12-14,000 men and the enemy weaker by at least 6-7,ooo."149 He later drafted the memoirs cited earlier to drive home his point that the French had too many forts demanding costly garrisons. The numbers presented by Vauban do not account for the 400,000-man wartime forces of the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, but they probably explain the peacetime size of the army. His two memoirs accord well with a third piece he wrote concerning French infantry. In it he asserted that about 132,000 French foot, assisted by 30,000 foreign and household troops, could effectively garrison French fortresses "in time of peace and war.35150 The usual assertion that peacetime armies were garrison armies can be a bit of a tautology, since they had no other place to go. But Vauban's memoirs demonstrate that this was not just a matter of convenience, of using fortresses as handy containers for the army between wars. With authority, he argued that the numbers of men maintained in peacetime were the minimum needed to provide garrisons at sufficient strength when war made its inevitable return. Any less, and fortresses would become prey to enemy action at the outset of the next conflict. Therefore, the French peacetime army, which hovered around 150,000 troops, was defined by garrison duty. To some extent, this conclusion may justify Parker's later claims that fortresses propelled military expansion through garrison requirements, but even here there are two qualifications. First, Parker concerned himself with wartime levels, whereas the greatest influence of garrison forces was on peacetime strengths, at least for the French. Second, the mere physical existence of fortresses did not in itself set the number of troops. As late as midcentury, fortresses might stand unguarded. In 1653, Turenne reported that there was "no infantry at all in the fortresses55 in the war zone because the king was so short of troops.151 The need for garrisons was never simply a matter of technological determinacy but a matter of policy and strategy. Decisions made by the Bourbons gave fortresses their leverage over military institutions. Ironically, France probably bristled with more fortresses early in thcjjrand siecle than existed by its close, but many had no appreciable royal garrisons. Instead, they were often held by the personal retainers of great lords or by urban militias. But these garrisons might resist the king's forces during rebellions, and this was a political risk that the Bourbons were unwilling to accept. Therefore, Louis XIII and Louis XIV acted from political as well as military motives when they destroyed some fortifications and garrisoned the remainder with royal troops. Strategic conceptions also played 149

150 151

Vauban to Louvois, 4 October 1675, Rochas d'Aiglun, Vauban, safamille et ses ecrits, 2 vols. (Paris: 1910), 2:131-32. Memoir on infantry, undated, in Rochas d'Aiglun, Vauban, 1:287. Turenne, Memoires de Turenne (Paris: 1872), 187.

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a role. The maintenance of large garrison forces resulted from the Sun Ring's resolve to secure his territory with a great fortress line. Louis XIV chose to build barriers, whereas earlier and later military men - Turenne and Napoleon, for example - preferred mobile forces. Only after these fundamental choices had been made, did judgments as to the size and composition of garrisons rest on the state of the art in siege warfare. Since the standing army was synonymous with the peacetime army, it is reasonable to argue that the standing army was a product of the military need to hold fortresses against foreign enemies and the political necessity to guarantee them against internal rebels. This argument stands in opposition to assertions that the standing army was created as a device to subjugate the French population as a whole. CONCLUSION This chapter has charted the dimensions and development of one of those giants that dominated warfare by 1700: the army of France. On the whole, earlier, traditional notions of French army growth have fared well in these pages, even though particularfigureshave been questioned or redefined. The two-step concept of French military expansion,firstsubstantial under Richelieu and later spectacular under Louis XIV, emerges in a modified form but still intact. Louis XIII nearly doubled previous troop levels when he and his able first minister entered the lists against Spain. Later, the Sun King commanded wartime forces five to eight times greater than those that had fought for his Valois predecessors, and perhaps even more impressive was the standing army that remained in peacetime to support the monarchy. Yet this recognition of dramatic army expansion under Louis XIV is qualified by the knowledge that the aging monarch's forces during the War of the Spanish Succession did not reach the proportions of those he had marshaled for the Nine Years' War. French army growth through the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV surpassed in importance all other military phenomena of the age: Military expansion was truly revolutionary in character. Both product and tool of dynastic and internal warfare, greater forces were integral to the transformation in army style and essential to the creation of absolutism. In addition, fundamental social questions involving the elites and the masses revolved around the fact of expansion. Therefore, an understanding of the history of French military institutions in the grand siecle begins with a knowledge of army growth. After beginning with this step, the journey of understanding can continue.

PART TWO ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPLY

3 The Military Administration

A

S the army loomed ever larger, it became more powerful and more dangerous - a towering brute with the strength to serve or to cripple the state. If handled well, this giant might dutifully overwhelm the enemies of France, but if mishandled, it might cause more harm to France itself than to her foes. Turning the army's potential to the purposes of the state required both the mobilization of resources demanded by the new giant and effective military administration to feed and control it. Field commanders would be helpless to lead their forces if military administration failed in its less glorious but still essential tasks. No other aspect of the military has received as much attention from historians of the seventeenth century as has administration. Its involvement with great historical figures and its obvious links to emerging absolutism as well as its remoteness from the battlefield, a venue that academic historians have tried to avoid - explain its popularity. Most attention has been given to the work of Le Tellier and his son, Louvois, whose years in office span nearly half the grand siecle^ 1643-91. Louis Andre and Camille Rousset contributed the classic studies, and Andre Corvisier has recently added to their impressive works. Coming from very different perspectives, Jules Caillet and, now, David Parrott, have studied military administration during Richelieu's regime. Only the era that extended from the death of Louvois to that of his master, Louis XIV, has failed to attract considerable attention, although it should. The extensive bibliography on military administration provides the abundant detail on hierarchy and control presented in this chapter, so one goal here is simply to combine the available material together into a coherent whole that covers the entire grand siecle. As a consequence of this reliance upon existent works, the resultant outline of French absolutist government, central military administration, and the individuals who directed it may be of less immediate interest to readers who already possess an understanding of seventeenth-century France than to those whose background leaves them 67

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less informed as to the operation of Bourbon absolutism. Nonetheless, by reviewing governmental and bureaucratic growth over the course of the entire century here, instead of focusing on the administration of only one or another individual, a picture emerges that is more original to this volume and not simply a transcription of what has already been written. That picture is one of surprising continuity in a period of change typified by important, but incremental, innovations rather than one of radical and total transformation - this despite the fact that the army underwent rapid and unprecedented growth. Discussion of military administration runs the danger of emphasizing the rational procedures found in ordinances over the catch-as-catch-can practices actually employed. To some degree, the pressures of time and space select for the former over the latter in this chapter. Other sections of this volume will emphasize the difference between regulation and reality in greater detail. That difference was always present and often very great, and the history of that gap is perhaps more interesting, and certainly more revealing, than a simple list of official offices and directives. In general, military bureaucracy grew and paperwork multiplied over the course of the seventeenth century. The effectiveness of that bureaucracy is, however, open to debate. A period of stagnation followed the death of Henri IV in 1610. When Richelieu assumed the position of minister in chief to the young Louis XIII, he instituted important changes in the formal administration of the army. The war with Spain, 1635-59, witnessed continued paper reforms, as the monarchy struggled to create the institutions to maintain an expanded army. These plans for change met with limited success, often foundering on the chaotic fiscal condition of the government. During the rebellion of the Fronde, conditions sank to a nadir of indiscipline, pillage, and mutiny caused largely by a breakdown in administration and supply. The day-to-day challenges of the war frustrated Le Tellier's reform plans, but the horrors of warfare also gave those plans a greater urgency, an urgency that eventually assisted him in constructing a better system once peace returned. If his goals had not been realized prior to the personal reign of Louis XIV, they set the direction for what would come later. The return of peace in 1659 allowed seriousfinancialand military reforms to take hold. The first decade of Louis XIV's personal reign witnessed a series of practical innovations carried out by LeTellier and Louvois. While the Dutch War led to a return offiscalabuses, the army ran well. With Louvois at the top of the military administration, French military preeminence continued into the Nine Years' War. Whether the level of effectiveness slipped after his death in 1691 is open to dispute. The military successes of the previous decades may have eluded the French, but the challenges that they faced were much greater, since the army swelled to its greatest size of the century even though the French never solved the key problem of state, and thus military, finance.

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POWER AT THE CENTER The Monarchs> Their First Ministers, and Their Councils France of the grand stick lay somewhere between medieval and modern. It operated by logic and values different from today's. True enough, authority was becoming increasingly bureaucratic, yet the monarch still dominated, still set military policy, so that power within the government flowed from the top down. And at the top stood very few individuals. Only two kings, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, ruled over the grand siecle, and although both were noteworthy monarchs, father and son possessed different characters and styles. Louis XIII ranks as one of France's least understood kings. Perhaps his more modest image is bound to be obscured by the glaring brilliance of his son. Louis XIII was effective but in a manner not associated with history's outstanding monarchs. As a private person he stuttered, sank frequently into melancholy, and tortured himself with suspicions of others and doubts about himself. Poor health dogged him throughout his life, and he died at age forty-two. But as a king, although Louis may have lacked a commanding personality, he was every inch a sovereign, with a firm sense of his role and duty. Intelligent and hard working, he never relinquished his ultimate authority. Louis was also a true soldier-king, who commanded his troops at the front. Roland Mousnier has gone so far as to say, "This suffering and anguished individual was a leader and a great king."1 At the death of his father, Henri IV, Louis was only a boy, and his mother, Marie de Medici, served as regent. Weak and corrupt, she fell under the influence of unscrupulous and self-seeking servants, the Concinis. Conniving at the murder of Concini, Louis seized power himself in 1617 and banished his mother to Blois. But the young and uncertain man of sixteen could neither govern effectively himself nor locate an outstanding minister to operate as his agent until 1624, when Cardinal Richelieu entered his government to guide affairs for eighteen years as first minister. Once Louis recognized Richelieu's ability, the monarch backed him with wisdom and courage, even in Richelieu's least popular decisions. Richelieu's authority always rested on the favor of the king. The cardinal never dictated to Louis, but the minister managed his master as best he could. Louis was prone to moods, and the cardinal monitored these personally or through his agents. Richelieu staffed the government with his own relatives, friends, and supporters - his clients, his creatures.2 Old family contacts rose to high positions, such as the Bouthilliers who became secretaries of state. By making sure that those government servants with the ear of the 1

2

Roland E. Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598-1789, vol. 2, The Organs of State and Society (Chicago: 1984), 17. See Orest Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII (Oxford: 1963) for a discussion of Richelieu and his creatures.

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king were all his creatures, Richelieu insulated the king from rivals and rival opinions. Richelieu himself served as an intermediary and clearinghouse between the king and other levels of administration. Besides the all-important first minister, Louis governed through his councils. The most exclusive council, the conseil secrete included only the king, Richelieu, and the chancellor. However, the council that became the most important of the jjrand siecle was the conseil des affaires', which after 1643 was known as the conseil d?en haut. In 1633, this council included Louis, Richelieu, the chancellor, the surintendant desfinances^and the secretary of state for war.3 Richelieu sought influence through unanimity, so he chose and advanced men who worked together well under his leadership. He did his best to reconcile opinions before he ever proposed actions or policies to the king. After all, dissension in the conseil d'en haut would by its very nature threaten Richelieu, since a strong clash of opinion there meant that Richelieu's favored plans had encountered opposition. The king concerned himself with the councils, but he had little taste for the mundane business of administration. While bureaucracy grew under Louis XIII, he never became a roi bureaucrat as did his son. Louis was more prone to action than to consideration. Richelieu died in 1642, and six months later, Louis XIII followed him to the grave. Before the monarch died, he chose a new first minister, Mazarin, Italian by birth and a protege of Cardinal Richelieu. The new king, Louis XIV, was only four years old; this meant that a regent would again exercise real power. Louis XIII, ever distrustful of his wife, had excluded the queen, Anne of Austria, from the council of regency. Mazarin, however, aided Anne in overturning the late king's will and in establishing a new council of regency with her at its head. Mazarin, a man of brilliance and skill, ingratiated himself with Anne, who rewarded him with loyalty and affection and left policy in his able hands. The cardinal also became the tutor and surrogate father of the boy-king. While Mazarin enjoyed the regent's and the king's confidence, he met resistance from other quarters. This resistance, the pressures of an ongoing war, and the inherent weakness of a regency government made most of his regime a time of troubles. Vicious pamphlets attacked his reputation, and assassination plots threatened his life. Not until after the defeat of the Fronde and the majority of Louis XIV did Mazarin's position become truly strong. Mazarin devoted himself to resisting attempts to undermine royal authority within France while at the same time securing victory over Spain. Mazarin could never be as direct and brutal as Richelieu; rather, the Italian dealt in the more subtle arts of compromise and deception. Anne was willing to let Mazarin take charge, since she was confident that he would put the interest of her son first. This he did, though he also became immensely rich in the process. The conciliar form of government remained, and Mazarin made use of a special Council of War, organized shortly after Richelieu's death by 3

Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:131.

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Gaston d'Orleans, but it seems to have had only a short career.4 Mazarin chose able men for high office; it was under his regime that Le Tellier rose to secretary of state for war. Considering the turmoil of the period, it seems amazing that as much was accomplished as actually was. Still, solid reforms would have to await the coming of peace in 1659 and the personal reign of Louis XIV. Louis XIV acted as an apprentice until the death of Mazarin in 1661, when the king actually took the reins of government in his own hands. From then until his own death in 1715, Louis ruled France directly and actively. He had come to the throne after a quarter century of exhausting warfare, complicated by the Fronde. The young monarch resolved that his authority would not again be challenged by the great nobles or privileged law courts that had threatened it in the Fronde, nor would he ever have recourse to afirstminister after the death of Mazarin. In substance and style, Louis XTV defined the pattern of absolutism. An absolute monarch in Louis's mold was not a dictator; to cast him as such would be anachronistic, since his power knew limits set by tradition and necessity. However, in those matters over which he claimed authority, he brooked no interference, and paramount among the king's lifelong concerns were diplomacy and military affairs; there he set and managed policy on a daily basis. He successfully overwhelmed potential competitors for his authority during his lifetime. France's medieval representative assembly, the Estates General, met last in 1614 and would not assemble again until 1789. The great sovereign law courts of France, confusingly known as parlements^ had attempted to assert their authority during the Fronde but failed, and under Louis XIV, they remained relatively docile. Although the Catholic Church in France might have become a factor in foreign policy when Louis squared off against the Vatican, it did not exert great influence. Louis also brought his own government servants to heel, both those at the center and those in the provinces. To a great degree, he suppressed independent action, even among his military commanders on campaign. More and more authority concentrated at court, under the direct supervision of the king. Louis could not expect to master every detail of government; rather, he saw his role as making decisions based on common sense, balancing expert advice offered by the chief figures of his government. Louis, like his father, regularized the decision-making process in a series of councils. By chairing the meetings, he kept hisfingeron the pulse of government affairs. Again the most important of these councils, the conseil dyen haut^ dealt with the most critical matters, including war and peace issues. Those who sat on it could call themselves "ministers" of state. Louis refused to set the membership of this council by ordinance, leaving himself free to choose the three, four, or 4

Charles Derek Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643-1648," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, 1995, 80. Croxton doubts that the Council of War met after 1643.

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five who regularly attended its meetings. Louis kept its size small to ensure secrecy. The most common members included the secretaries of state for foreign affairs, war, and navy, and the controleur general desfinances.However, the post of secretary of state did not necessarily carry with it automatic entree into the conseil. One secretary of state for war, the marquis de Barbezieux, did not receive an invitation to the conseil d^en haut^ since Louis preferred the opinions of the marquis de Chamlay, his personal military advisor of long standing. 5 Louis kept control over this council in other ways as well and expressly forbade his ministers to meet if he were not present.6 The members of the conseil vied for influence amongst themselves, a situation that Louis exploited by playing his advisors off against each other so as to give himself leverage and leeway. Such conflicts most commonly saw the two major ministerial families - the Le Telliers and the Colberts - contend over policy, power, and preference. As the observer, Primi Visconti, wrote, ccLe Tellier and Colbert are not very good friends, the one wants to surpass the other; but the king holds them in equilibrium, the better to do his business."7 Here was a great contrast with government under Louis XIII and Richelieu. Richelieu had to present a common front to the monarch to guarantee control, but Louis XIV as monarch fostered dissension in order to maintain his authority. The conseil dyen haut met on no regular schedule; its sessions were entirely at the king's pleasure. Louis used his conseil as he saw fit; however, at times, he seems to have viewed it as an annoyance, since there his elevated civil servants might try to temper or oppose the king's designs. Inside the council, members discarded the formalities of court and discussed issues openly and in strict confidence; ministers criticized the king's positions, though in public they dared not. After an issue was discussed and the ministers made their opinions known, Louis usually decided with the majority; however, sometimes he would oppose it for no other reason than to demonstrate his power. For this system to function under the monarch's real, as well as theoretical, control, the king had to possess a great appetite for work - and Louis XIV did. H e wrote, "I imposed upon myself the rule of working regularly twice a day two or three hours each time with divers persons of government, not counting the hours I spend myself or the time required for extraordinary affairs."8 Outside this council, he discussed matters of foreign policy, strategy, and operations with his secretaries of state and other experts, one on one. Even lesser officials conferred directly with the king on a regular basis. 5

6

7 8

Martin, Ronald. "The Marquis de Chamlay, Friend and Confidential Advisor to Louis XIV: The Early Years, 1650-1691," Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1972, argues that Chamlay won Louis's confidence from the Dutch War on. John C. Rule, "Colbert de Torcy, an Emergent Bureaucracy, and the Formulation of French Foreign Policy, 1698-1715," in Ragnhild Hatton, ed., Louis XLVand Europe (Columbus, Ohio: 1976), 281. Primi Visconti, Memoires, 130. Louis in John B. Wolf, Louis XLV (New York: 1968), 168.

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The Great Bureaucrats Immediately after the king, and first ministers in the case of Richelieu and Mazarin, came the surintendant or controleurgeneral desfinancesand the secretaries of state, who headed the growing bureaucracy of royal government. Until 1661, the surintendant desfinancesdirected financial administration, but Louis XIV abolished the office that year and replaced it with a new and more restricted post, the controleur general desfinances.This was a less grand title, since a "controleur" was technically only an accountant, but the controleur general was an important figure, indeed, with direct access to the king. Though not directly a military official, the chief financial officer of the monarchy and his agents were central to maintaining the army. Four secretaries of state also enjoyed direct access to the king and sat in the most powerful councils. While the office of secretary of state was not a creation of the grand siecle, it was during this era that the functions of the secretaries were regularized and defined.9 These offices evolved over time from the clerks who maintained the kings5 correspondence. A single secretary already held sway over matters dealing with war under Francois II (1559-60). Henri III (1574-89) both elevated four secretaries and tried to exert greater control over these four when he gave them the title secretaries of state, and he made their position, or charge, revocable.10 By the late sixteenth century, the four secretaries divided the provincial correspondence between them, each having a particular geographic authority in addition to whatever aspect of government he might be charged with. A reglement of 1619 defined the responsibilities of the secretary of state for war. It gave him the right to write commissions and orders only for the "first and principal army," while garrisons and other armies fell to the secretaries who held the responsibility for the provinces in which the armies or garrisons were located. When an army crossed the geographic lines separating the jurisdictions of two secretaries, it was up to the secretaries to decide who would write the orders for the army. Obviously, such a situation gave rise to dispute. The famous reglement of 11 March 1626 defined the four secretaries in more complete form, and, thus, Richelieu often receives credit for creating the office of secretary of state. Yet the secretaries of state had begun the process of specialization well before Richelieu, and the reglements of 1619 and 1626 simply recognized this existing differentiation and then further clarified its lines. According to the 1626 act, each of the four received responsibility for certain provinces plus a further administrative department, most notably, war, foreign affairs, and the royal household. Eventually one secretary of state was put in charge of naval affairs. According to the 1626 regulation, Beauclerc received the provinces of Lyonnais, Dauphine, Provence, Saintonge, 9

10

See, in particular, Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII on the evolution of the secretaries of state. Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII, 48.

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La Marche, Angoumois, Limousin, and Poitou in addition to the department of war.11 Along with provincial authority came certain military duties for each of the other three secretaries of state; for example, they controlled fortifications in their territories, at least until 1661. While the differentiation of the positions of the secretaries of state were legitimized in regulations, the tendency to split or combine secretaryships complicated the actual jurisdictions. These positions were not defined by concrete-hard lines of authority. At important junctures, one individual could hold more than one major office; for example, Colbert was controleurgeneral during 1661-83, to which he joined secretary of state for the navy in 166983 and secretary of state for the royal household in 1668-83. During the same period, Le Tellier, secretary of state for war since 1643, shared the office with his son Louvois, from 1662. Also, in contrast to modern practice, son often followed father, or uncle, in office, and ministerial dynasties tended to dominate offices - the most obvious cases being the Le Telliers and the Colberts. Louvois succeed his father, Michel Le Tellier, and was in turn succeeded by his own son, Barbezieux. Colbert's son Seignelay followed his father as both secretary for the navy and the household; and Demaretz, nephew of Colbert, later held the post of controleur general. The Bouthilliers under Louis XIII and the Phelypeaux under Louis XIII and Louis XIV constituted lesser examples of such dynasties. Family succession was bolstered by the fact that the right to succeed in these positions could be bought, though only with the king's accord. They essentially became family possessions, which demanded a high price, as when Chamillart paid the family of Barbezieux 300,000 livres to succeed him as secretary of state for war in 1701.12 The authority wielded by the small knot of advisors and administrative heads around Louis derived not from their own birth and wealth but from the fact that Louis called upon them to serve. He scrupulously kept powerful nobles of old families, the peers of France, from high bureaucratic posts and from the councils. He once explained that "it was not in my interest to seek men of a more eminent birth because having need above all to establish my own reputation, it was important that the public know by the rank of those whom I choose to serve me, that I had no intention of sharing my authority with them . . . .5313 The men he placed in power possessed legal and administrative backgrounds, and they sprang from families only recently ennobled. Court grandees looked down on government ministers. During a procession of the knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit, an order to which Louvois belonged, the wife of Philippe d'Orleans yelled, "See how Louvois has the air of a bourgeois! . .. No Order can hide his condition.5'14 There were only rare 11

12

13 14

Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:143-44. In 1626, Beauclerc also received responsibility for the Mediterranean fleet. Marcel Marion, Dictionnaire des institutions de la France aux XVTIe et XVJIIe siecles (Paris: 1923), 503. Louis in Andre Corvisier, Louvois (Paris: 1983), 278. Primi Visconti, Memoires sur la cour de Louis XIV, 1673-81, Jean-Francois Solnon, ed. (Paris: 1988), 27.

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breaks in Louis's exclusion of the well-born: Marshal Turenne, for example, enjoyed great influence over the king in the 1660s, and he was from the princely family La Tour d'Auvergne. Since the secretaries and the controleur general controlled considerable patronage, they accumulated networks of clients, men who depended on their good will and who in turn acted as their supporters. This gave Louis's major servants something of an independent power base, yet while such a network might aid a secretary in rising to power, maintaining himself in office, or in fending off his rivals, it was not a tool to assert independence against the will of the king. Over the course of the century, the departments of state and the office of the surintendanty'controleur general became more and more bureaucratized. This was particularly the case for the departments of war and foreign affairs. As a consequence, Louis XIV played the role of chief administrator, the roi bureaucrat^ more than had his father. But even under the Sun King, the bureaucracy did not rule, for Louis XIV crafted it not to govern in his stead but to ensure that he alone governed. The fact that French bureaucracy later developed into a perpetual-motion machine, as bureaucracies tend to do, is beside the point.

The Surintendant des finances^ the Controleur general^ and Their Agents As money constitutes the sinews of war, the financial administration played a vital role in supporting the French army, and agents of that administration went to the field with the troops. Before Louis abolished the office, the surintendant des finances was the state's top financial officer.15 Actually, surintendants is a better term, because often two individuals jointly held the post. The position of surintendant fluctuated between what Mousnier calls personal and collegial approaches. Henri IV tried to replace the surintendant with a commission of eight upon the death of Francois d'O, who had been surintendant during 1578-94. When this failed, Rosny, soon to become duke de Sully, operated as surintendant effectively from 1598 and in title from 1601, but with Henri IV's death, Sully was driven from office in 1611.16 Under Louis XIII, the most important surintendants werefidelesof Richelieu. Today, no commission for the major financial official dates before 1619, and it seems none was issued before then. Regulations of 1624 and 1630 gave the surintendant, first, a seat on the conseil d?en haut, and, second, title of minister of state. The next major individual to occupy this post during the first half 15

16

For a short discussion of the surintendant desfinances,see Mousnier, The Institutions ofFrance, 2:180-214; and for the surintendant under Richelieu, see Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII, 120-80. Richard Bonney, The King's Debts (Oxford: 1981), in his Appendix one, table one, 285-87, lists all surintendants, 1578-1661. Bonney, The King's Debts, 285.

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of thcgrand siecle was the very able Antoine Coiffier de Ruze, marquis d'Effiat, 1626-32, a man loyal to Richelieu. After Efifiat died, Claude de Bullion and Claude le Bouthillier held the post jointly, although Bullion was clearly the senior partner until his death in 1640, when Bouthillier carried on alone until 1643.17 Richelieu dominated financial concerns more under his client Bouthillier than he had under Bullion. The position was held by ten different persons, individually or in pairs, from 1643 to 1653, when it came into the hands of Abel Servien and Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet, the more ambitious and driving of the two became increasingly dominant but only held the title alone after Servien died in 1659. Like others before and after him, Fouquet was himself a financier, who loaned his own money to the government when necessary, as when he advanced the crown 3 million livres in 1656-57.18 Fouquet5s ambition destroyed both himself and his office, as Louis XIV abolished the surintendancy in 1661, deciding "to take to himself the care of administering his own finances, in order to eliminate all the abuses that have slipped in to this date."19 Louis supervised financial policy and administration through a special council, the conseil royal desfinances,created by the reglement of 15 September 1661.20 Actually, one form or another of such a council predated his personal reign. Henri IV had tried to use a commission to run finances (1594-98) and thereafter, commissions and councils played a role. A reglement of 1630 even stipulated particular days of the week for meetings of a conseil des finances', however, the conseil did not take on permanent form and function until 1661. Generally, Louis presided over this important council twice each week. 21 Below the surintendant desfinancesbefore 1661, and later in its stead, stood the controleur general desfinances.This post began as a rather modest office, employed to audit, really to certify, royal accounts. Before Colbert, it was not a strong position, and often there were as many as four controleursgenerals serving at the same time. 22 However, Louis XIV raised the post to the status of finance minister when he turned it into a commission in 1665 and appointed Colbert as the first new controleur general. Recourse to a new style of finance minister signified that the task of daily financial administration proved too much for Louis, but it did not mean that he abdicated his control. The controleur general enjoyed less independence than had the surintendant. Louis used his conseil desfinancesto keep on top of things and to ensure that it was his will that was done. The elevation of Colbert also marked the triumph of the personal, as opposed to collegial, financial administration of finance. From that time on, there would be only one controleur general at a Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII, 166-80. Peter Jonathan Berger, "Military and Financial Government in France, 1648-1661," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979, 245-46. Exilement of 15 September 1661 in Marion, Dictionnaire, 523. Marion, Dictionnaire, 134-35. 21 Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:18. Bonney, The King's Debts, in his Appendix one, table two, 288, lists controleurs generaux, 15941665.

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time. Colbert held the commission until his death in 1683, when Le Pelletier de Morfontaine succeeded him. Louis Phelypeaux, count de Pontchartrain, occupied the post from 1689 to 1699. He was followed by Michel de Chamilliart (1699-1708) and Nicolas Demaretz, a nephew of Colbert (170815).

A number of intendants desfinancesserved both the surintendant and, later, the controleurgeneral. They varied in number from era to era. Under Frangois I, there were two; Sully employed two or three; from 1615 to 1649, eight served at a time; this number was increased to twelve in 1654.23 Since these offices were up for sale, the temptation was to create more in times of need. The housecleaning that followed the war with Spain brought the number back down to two in 1660, but the number increased to four in 1690. The duties of these intendants varied; if serving with an army, as Sublet de Noyers did in the 1630s, they performed much as army intendants. Other financial officers who played roles in war finance included the tresoriers and receveurs. Tresoriers supervised the various funds of the monarch. The most important were the tresoriers d'epargne. In order to ensure a degree of honesty and accountability, this post, and that of other major treasurers, changed hands each year. But upon inspection, the list of names of tresoriers reveals that this post tended to oscillate back and forth between two or three individuals.24 So at the start of thcgrand siecle, Etienne Puget, Vincent Bouhier, and Raymond Phelypeaux alternated in the job in neat succession from 1598 to 1624, with the substitution of Thomas Morant for Puget after 1616. At midcentury, Guenegaud, Jeanin, and Mace II Bertrand played musical chairs with the post. Receveurs supervised the collection and accounts of funds for the monarchy, and they existed on a number of levels for a great variety of taxes and funds. Receveurs des tailles monitored the collection of that tax in each taxing district. Higher on the scale were the receveurs generals', one in each generalite. There were also receveurs for special war taxes, including contributions levied on occupied territory. As discussed in Chapter 1, surintendants^ controleurs generals^ and intendants desfinances,and other financial officers were important less for their executive talent than for their connections with wealth and their own personal credit, which the state repeatedly called upon.

Tresoriers of the Military Accounts Imbedded in the nearly unaccountable system of French finance, military finance had its own administrative complexities. It made use of several budget lines that increased in number during the grand siecle. The oldest was the ordinaire des guerres^ which by the seventeenth century covered the pay of 23 24

Bonney, The King's Debts, 6; Marion, Dictionnaire, 299. Bonney, The King's Debts, in his Appendix one, table four, 290-92, lists tresoriers de Vepargne, 1589-1661.

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Table 3.1. Military expenses for 1692.

Budget item Extraordinaire et ordinaire des guerres Pain de munition Garnisons ordinaires Etapes Fortifications Pensions et gratifications aux troupes Artillerie Marechaux de France Gardes du corps etc.

Expenses in livres tournois 72,622,840 12,658,546 2,523,374 10,075,617 6,424,951 2,070,539 1,816,942 552,754 184,523

household and guard troops but little else. It had shrunk to a minor amount by the seventeenth century. The primary military account was the extraordinaire des guerres. The extraordinaire was so much larger than the ordinaire that in most existent accounts it simply subsumes the ordinaire?* As a gauge of the relative importance of the several military budget lines carried in contemporary etats, consider Table 3.1, which lists annual outlays in 1692 at the peak year of the Nine Years5 War.26 N o t only were the ordinaire and extraordinaire des guerres administered separately, but both were divided into two departments, Picardy and Piedmont, the first dealing with the twelve provinces north of the Loire, and the second with the rest of France. Two or three tresoriersgeneraux headed each department and rotated in office.27 It would appear that the only major military accounts handled by other treasurers were artillery and fortifications. 28 From a strictly military point of view, the tresoriers of the extraordinaire 25

26 27 28

Victor Belhomme, Uarmee franpaise en 1690 (Paris: 1895), 142-43, gives a useful breakdown of just what the ordinaire and extraordinaire covered. Items under the ordinaire included: general officers, troops of the maison, guards regiments, gendarmerie and marechaussee, and the ordinaire shares of artillery and maintenance of fortresses. The extraordinaire covered the following: pay of other troops, vivres, hospitals, lodging, and the extraordinaire share of artillery and the construction of new fortifications. When ordinaire accounts are found, they are quite small. BN, f. fr. 7749, Monteil, "Etat des finances de la France depuis 1600 jusqu'a l'annee 1786," lists ordinaire in 1675 as only 4,000 livres, at a time when Mallet lists ^Extraordinaire et ordinaire" as 48,391,000 livres. AN, KK 355 does not even carry a budget line for the ordinaire des guerres, and Mallet, Compts rendus shows the same n u m b e r that K K 355 shows as extraordinaire as extraordinaire et ordinaire. Data in table from Mallet, Compts rendus, 399. C o n t a m i n e , Histoire militaire, 1:344. Accounts for 1692 from the treasurer for the extraordinaire seem t o cover everything with t w o exceptions: (1) a line of payment t o the tresorier de Vartillerie roughly equivalent t o t h e budget for artillery indicates that this budget t h o u g h it m a y have passed t h r o u g h the extraordinaires was managed by its o w n treasurer; a n d (2) there is n o mention of expenses for fortifications, which were r u n t h r o u g h its o w n surintendant, Le Pelletier d e Souzy.

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de guerres were particularly important officials. Just as particular tresoriers d'e'pargne served for only one year at a time, so also did the tresoriersgeneraux de ^extraordinaire des guerres. At times, however, two to five tresoriers officially served jointly, as throughout much of the period 1688-1715. Claudine Fages argues, however, that while the royal almanac might list several names of treasurers, the actual signatures on official documents reveal that usually only one individual exercised the actual functions of the post. 29 Other tresoriers and commis served below the tresoriers generaux ^ and again rotation of these commissions was also supposed to make for more honest accounts. Permission was denied when exceptions were proposed, as in 1696. "You propose to keep on Devicourt during the present year as commis of the tresoriers de ^extraordinaire de la guerre d'Ambrun et des Vallees. As it is customary to change this post every year, in order that they render their accounts more clearly, it is not possible to keep him in this position." 30 Armies and even units, such as the Gardes suisses, had their own treasurers as well, so the term tresoricr existed on a wide range of levels. Additional financial agents, such as controleurs^ receveurs^ zndpayeurs^ staffed the financial administration with the field armies.

Secretary of State for War The secretary of state for war directed military administration during the seventeenth century, and over the course of the century, his position evolved considerably. This constant evolution has given rise to considerable debate over who actually founded modern military administration. Audouin gives the palm to Henri IV and his minister Sully, Caillet believes that Richelieu deserves credit, Wolf applauds Sublet, Andre praises Le Tellier, and Rousset insists it was Louvois. To a degree, this is only a marginally productive effort to establish at what point on a steadily rising curve the line crossed the threshold from old to modern. Lay Audouin's claims aside, since he seems isolated in this insistence and since the chaos of the 1630s discounts the lasting impact of Sully's reforms. Without doubt, some key moves were made under Richelieu, before he brought Sublet de Noyers on the scene. Then Sublet and his more important successor, Le Tellier, outlined a system on paper, and adopted what they could of it in practice, but financial chaos, army growth, military crisis, and civil rebellion greatly hampered what they could accomplish under Richelieu and Mazarin during the war with Spain. However, after 1661, the return of peace, the improvement in royal finance, and the strong hand of a young and unchallenged monarch allowed first Le Tellier and then his son Louvois to 29

30

Claudine Fages, "Le service de la guerre sous Louis XIV de 1699 a 1715" (1974), manuscript catalogue of documents in AN, G 7i774-88, which contain the correspondence and records of t h e tresoriers generaux de ^extraordinaire des guerres, 1695-1715. AG, A4339, p. 96, letter of 11 January 1796.

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construct a new edifice based upon the blueprint drafted by Le Tellier. By the death of Louvois in 1691, the patterns of ancien regime military administration were largely set until the French Revolution. Administrators seem to have done little to change them in the remaining years of Louis's reign, which has led some to claim that the system became ossified. As already mentioned, war had been the primary responsibility of a single secretary of state since the mid-sixteenth century, but other secretaries held authority over troops stationed in the provinces for which they were responsible. Caillet argues that before Richelieu, virtual anarchy reigned in French military administration. 31 While this exaggerates the situation, certainly conflicting lines of authority and inadequate administrative practices and personnel frustrated the reforms that would be necessary for the far larger armies that fought after 1635. Richelieu deserves credit even if, as already mentioned, the 1626 act formally differentiating the functions of the secretaries represented an evolution more than a revolution. The 1626 reglement increased the jurisdiction of the secretary of state for war and gave him responsibility for all correspondence with armies outside the realm.32 Real-world developments continued to add power and bureaucratic staff to the secretaries and to validate their authority with time and habit. As is detailed later, the abolition of the constable in 1627 was probably the most important move that Richelieu made. Beauclerc held the post of secretary of state for war during 1626-30, immediately after Richelieu's reglement\ Corvisier thus identifies him as the first French minister of war.33 Able Servien, the next to hold the post, 1630-35, performed with ability under the aegis of Richelieu; however, it was Sublet de Noyers, 1635-43, who devised the means to muster a great army for a fullscale war in the era of absolutism; this may explain why John B. Wolf calls Sublet de Noyers the first true administrator of the "new army."34 Beauclerc, Servien, and Sublet have failed to attract major biographers in the same way as Le Tellier and Louvois, so their briefs before the historical court remain thin. Probably Orest Ranum provides the best account of Sublet de Noyers.35 Sublet served as an intendant of finance and a military intendant before rising to secretary of state. Sublet was a creature of Richelieu and would not have been granted the post were he not. While never free from the tutelage of the cardinal, who sent him military memoranda and instructions, thefirstminister's limitations of time and health left Sublet considerable autonomy to act in the name of the minister and the king. In Ranum's judgment, the 31

32 33 34 35

Jules Caillet, De Vadminstration en France sous le ministere du Cardinal de Richelieu (Paris: 1857), 362-63. Corvisier sees the 1626 act as the first major step in an evolution. Corvisier, Louvois, 82. Philippe Contamine, ed., Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 1 (Paris: 1992), 340. Wolf, Louis XIV, 148. Ranum, Richelieu and the Councilors of Louis XIII, devotes an entire chapter to Sublet de Noyers.

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importance and goals of the secretary of state for war were defined under Sublet: "the essential elements for a new order were determined: the secretary spoke and wrote in the name of the king, and the goal, the unification of the entire military administration, was already established." 36 Without doubt, a good many new regulations and ordinances date from Noyer's administration, but the practical effect of particular decrees has been challenged. David Parrott and Peter Berger doubt the reality of military reform under Richelieu, since the army suffered such administrative collapse during the first decade of the war with Spain. So if Sublet set a direction, he made little substantive progress along it. In any case, when Richelieu died, Sublet bid to replace the cardinal as first minister and compromised himself in the process. Sublet had to go in 1643, making way for Michel Le Tellier. Like his predecessor, Le Tellier worked as an army intendant before assuming the secretaryship. From 1640 to 1643, he served as intendant with the Army of Italy. Since Sublet actually owned the post of secretary, for two years Le Tellier held a provisional title and only received title in full when Sublet died in 1645. While Le Tellier busied himself with the tasks of military administration, he seems to have had little part in shaping French strategy, which remained firmly in the hands of Mazarin. 37 Le Tellier's career in office might usefully be divided into two periods. During the first period, from his accession to office in 1643 until the beginning of the personal reign of Louis XIV in 1661, Le Tellier produced a great many ordinances and regulations. In fact, by Andre's count, the years of the seventeenth century most filled with his legislative activity were 1643, 1645, 1647, 1649, 1651, 1653-55, 1661-63, and 1665-66, so the great majority of Le Tellier's work of drafting a new military system occurred early.38 Yet because of the ongoing war with its attendant military crisis and financial collapse, Le Tellier proved unable to apply these ordinances in a consistent and effective manner. War raged, campaigns often went badly, France was periodically occupied by enemy troops, and rebellion challenged the authority of the monarch. Still, the historian Louis Andre asserts that Le Tellier brought "the progressive and methodical transformation of the army of France." 39 But David Parrott casts doubts upon this evaluation by making the immensely valid point that there was a great difference between the neat prescriptions set out in regulations and the confused expedients encountered in real life. He charges that Andre relied too much upon official ordinances rather than basing his conclusions upon correspondence coming in from the field, which reported the actual collapse of administration during the 1640s. To a degree, this complaint is valid, but a close reading of Andre reveals that he repeatedly states that Le Tellier had to await the defeat of the Fronde in 1653, the return 36 37 38 39

Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII, 119. Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe," 81. Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et Louvois (Paris: 1942), 314. Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et Vorganisation de Varmee monarchique (Paris: 1906), 113.

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of peace in 1659, and, most importantly, the fiscal reforms of Colbert after 1661 before he could turn his paper systems into reality. So Andre was not quite so gullible as to mistake intentions for accomplishments, the de jure for the de facto. From 1662 until his retirement from the secretaryship in 1677, Le Tellier shared the office with his son Louvois. Consequently, there is considerable debate as to whether the accomplishments of this later period ought to be credited to father or son. Since practically the entire legislative basis for French military administration had been laid down by this point, Andre sees Le Tellier as the architect of that system, and Corvisier concurs: ccIt must be stated that in the administration of the army nothing had changed fundamentally from what Le Tellier had put in order." 40 Yet the plans of the father required the efforts of the son. Louvois was slated to follow his father from an early age. Le Tellier obtained for his son the right to succeed to office in December 1655, when Louvois was only fifteen.41 On his marriage in 1662, the twenty-two-year-old Louvois received the right to sign as secretary of state for war as a wedding gift from the king. Andre attacks Louvois's greatest biographer, Camille Rousset, for saying that Louvois deserves credit for running the show from that date on, although he clearly began as an apprentice.42 In any case, by 1670, Louvois exerted the major force in the department. 43 Officially, Le Tellier resigned the post of secretary of state only to accept that of chancellor in 1677. It should be said that for a time early in Louvois's career, Turenne virtually played the role of minister of war without running the administration of secretary of state. In the late 1660s, as Louis sought to learn the art of war from its greatest French master, Turenne enjoyed considerable influence with the monarch, attending the conseil d'en haut. However, by the Dutch War, Turenne's star had slipped somewhat, and Louvois had gained preponderance. 44 As he matured, Louvois dominated the army though sheer force of personality, or as Rousset put it, "The genius of Louvois was will.5545 Le Tellier was an innovative systematizer, and before Louis's personal reign, Le Tellier needed also to be the modest and flexible man of compromise. Thus, the father was more in the mode of Mazarin than in the style of the imperious Sun King. In contrast, Louvois fitted the personality of the Sun King, enforcing the regime of that Apollo who must be obeyed. Saint-Simon described Louvois as "haughty, brutal, coarse,55 while to Primi Visconti he had a "hard and violent character.5546 Sensitivity would have been no asset for the 40 41 42 44 46

Corvisier, Louvois, 179. Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, 4 vols. (Paris: 1862-64), 1:14. A n d r e , Le Tellier et Louvois, 307. 43 Corvisier, Louvois, 176. R o u s s e t , Louvois, 1:320. 45 R o u s s e t , Louvois, 1:176. S a i n t - S i m o n a n d P r i m i Visconti in Corvisier, Louvois, 151-52.

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Louvois who operated as the king's enforcer, as a minister who could write to a subordinate, "The king desires that you put in prison or lock up the first who does not obey you or who gives you the least difficulty."47 Along with his will came great energy. Louvois traveled constantly; during the Dutch War, he spent more than 25 percent of his time away from court.48 Much of the rest of this chapter is devoted to the work of Le Tellier and Louvois. Le Tellier appreciated the problems posed by larger armies in an era of absolutism and was able to devise important solutions; Louvois possessed the secure royal backing and the force of character to apply those solutions with vigor. The arguments over who was the greater seem to miss the point; in the long run, they complemented each other and owed their accomplishments to one another. Our knowledge of the secretaries of state for war after Louvois declines sharply. None have found the biographers they deserve, and administrative histories tend to leave a gap from the death of Louvois in 1691 until the passing of his master in 1715. Rousset condemns Louvois's successors as mediocre.49 Louvois, like his father before him, secured the succession for a son. In 1681, Louvois purchased this right for his oldest son, but he proved to be ill suited to the task, so in 1685, the father obtained permission to transfer the succession to his youngest son, the marquis de Barbezieux, a youth of seventeen who showed better aptitude for work. In March 1687, he began to function in the charge, with the right to enter the conseil but without the right to express his opinions there. But Barbezieux fell short of Louvois, and Louis XIV realized this, so when the father died, Louis turned to an experienced military administrator and a colleague of Louvois, Chamlay, recalling him from Germany. Louis may have actually offered the office of secretary of state to Chamlay, but in any case, Barbezieux maintained the post while Chamlay became the king's personal military advisor.50 In fact, Barbezieux was not at first up to the task before him, and the king considered dismissing him. Barbezieux did not retain the right to attend the conseil d'en haut, so while secretary of state, he cannot be termed a minister.51 A libertine, he died at the age of thirty-three in 1701.

Under Barbezieux, the main work of the department of war fell to Chamlay and Saint-Pouenges. Critics claim that from this point on, the French did not innovate but simply carried on the practices of Louvois, though without his ruthless efficiency. Stephen Baxter goes as far as to say that even before his death, the French army had become a flabby giant.52 The logic of the argument comes from comparing the administration of the army during the 47 49 51 52

22 August 1673, Corvisier, Louvois, 179. 48 Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:391. Rousset, Louvois, 3:323. 50 Wolf, Louis XIV, 464; Corvisier, Louvois, 480. Xavier Audouin, Histoire de ^administration de la guerre, 4 vols. (Paris: 1811), 2:371. Stephen Baxter, William III and the Defense of European Liberty, 1650-1702 (New York: 1966), 282.

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Dutch War with that during the Nine Years' War, but this may be unfair and is certainly simplistic. The French army only hit its peak size about the time of Louvois's death, and it is impossible to know how successfully he could have maintained it at those proportions. What are seen as the failings of his successors may, indeed, have stemmed from inferior talent, but to this must be added the fact that those successors had to shoulder a far greater burden than Louvois had been forced to carry. Barbezieux's death ended the Le Tellier family's sixty-year hold on the office of secretary of state for war. Louis next awarded the office to his controleur general des finances, Michel Chamillart. It will be seen that the conduct of war always involved both the secretary of state and the controleur general, who each maintained his own agents with the armies in the field. By combining both chains of administrative command, some benefits might have accrued. But the weight of office wore down Chamillart and turned him defeatist. He surrendered the post of controleur general in 1708 and that of secretary of state for war in 1709. Daniel Voysin replaced him in the war department. Wolf describes Voysin as "an able and vigorous administrator," but we have no study of his conduct during the crisis years of the War of the Spanish Succession.53 But by 1709, French resources were nearly exhausted, and the task at hand was survival. Voysin held his thankless post until Louis died.

Department of War Historians seem a bit confused as to what is the best title for the bureaucracy headed by the secretary of state for war, since it bore no official title. Corvisier refers to it as a secretariat', other historians have labeled it a ministry from time to time. 54 The most convenient choice is the term departement used in its ancien regime sense, meaning an area of administrative responsibility, as when an intendant referred to the generalite that he ran as his department. 55 A contemporary, Spanheim, used precisely this word in this sense when he praised the efficient conduct of the secretariat serving Louvois, stating that Louvois "found himself particularly aided by the great order that he brought in the review and expedition of business in his departement "S6 At its inception, the embryonic department amounted only to a few clerks who maintained the correspondence of the secretary of state. Clerks assisted the royal secretary charged with the primary tasks of military administration before that officer ever received the official title of secretary of state for war. 57 53

54 56 57

Wolf, Louis XW, 561; Claude C. Sturgill, Marshall Villars and the War of the Spanish Succession (Lexington, KY: 1965), 87. Corvisier, Louvois, 327. 55 See M a r i o n , Dictionnaire, 168. Spanheim in Andre, Le Tellier, 645. For a short description of the secretariat that served a secretary of state, see Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:144-45.

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They appeared as regular functionaries in 1567. A regulation of 1588 permitted each secretary to employ a chief clerk, a commis^ and six lesser clerks. In 1599, another regulation awarded the original commis the title of premier commis or principal commis and termed all the subordinate clerks commis. The role of premier commis could be substantial; premier commis in foreign affairs had access to the king. Important commis earned considerable salaries and rated more as administrators than head clerks. The actual supervision of the regular commis could fall to the personal secretary of the secretary of state or to a special commis. The department grew immensely and differentiated itself into bureaus over the course of the grand siecle. Mousnier sees the demise of the constable as accelerating the expansion of the secretary's bureaucracy, while war on an unprecedented scale after 1635 also drove on the growth. 58 By the midseventeenth century, Le Tellier had divided his office into at least five bureaus. At the close of the war with Spain, these were headed by Le Roy, SaintPouenges, Carpatry, Charpentier, and Le Boistel, all men who were clients of Le Tellier, trained by him, and passed on to his son. 59 Andre insists that Louvois simply inherited the organization and the personnel, just adding to the number of bureaus when need arose. By 1680, the department contained seven bureaus as follows.60 Saint-Pouenges - officers' commissions, reviews, hospitals, tents, sand bags; Bellou - secretariat, letters and secret instructions, fortifications, cadets, roles des mois;

Dufresnoy - sending of patents, powers, regulations, ordinances, and commissions; Charpentier - establishing routes, ordinances, and regulations concerning the movement of troops; Tourmont - statements [e'tats] of money, foodstuffs, and pensions; Bourdon - petitions, information on the disputes of the troops; Le Renaudiere - rolls of benefices, correspondence dealing with general petitions to the king for the months when this was the responsibility of the secretary of state for war (this was one of the duties that rotated among the four secretaries of state). The bureaus at first worked in the hotel Louvois in Paris, but when the court settled down in Versailles, the primary secretariat moved there. It first resided in a commandeered town house and then transferred to the hotel de la Surintendance after Colbert died in 1683. When the court traveled, the main personnel of the department followed it. At all times, much of the basic staff remained in Paris.61 In 1688, Louvois assigned Bellou an additional duty, the creation of a formal archive, the Depot de la guerre. The documents gathered there had 58 60

Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:142. 59 Andre, Le Tellier, 645. Corvisier, Louvois, 327-28. 61 Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:391.

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been collected since 1637, when Richelieu instructed Sublet de Noyers to have his clerks make copies of all instructions, orders, and dispatches, "which can serve historical memory in order that they be added to my journals.5562 Andre insists that Le Tellier was the first to save minutes and copies conscientiously and thus was the real founder of the Depot.63 The documents assembled in the Depot constitute the invaluable A1 series now held by the Service historique de Tarmee de terre in the Archives de guerre at the Chateau de Vincennes. Corvisier has tallied the amount of correspondence produced by the various secretaries of war as a rough measure of the amount of work they performed. The correspondence also indicates the size of the department of war. The mean number of letters preserved in the war archives written annually during the Servien years amounted to only 830, rose to 1,100 for Sublefs administration, and totaled 2,400 for Le Tellier, 1643-66.64 Looking at the minutes, or the hurriedly written notes for letters to be sent out, the annual number peaked at about 4,500 during the shared ministry of Le Tellier and Louvois, climbed to over 10,000 under Louvois, but fell sharply under Barbezieux, sinking as low as 2,500 in 1700.65 The reason for the decline under Barbezieux relates to the fact that he did not hold the full range of responsibilities that his father possessed; Louvois had been surintendant ties postes and surintendant des batiments, arts et manufactures^ as well as chief

administrator of French fortifications in addition to his job as secretary of state. The number of minutes escalated again with the return of war. With Chamillart at the helm, it passed 13,000 in 1706, far more than at any time under Louvois, and the number exceeded 10,000 per year again under Voysin; such were the strains of administration during Louis's last and most trying war.66 CIVIL ADMINISTRATORS IN T H E P R O V I N C E S AND WITH T H E ARMIES The central administration headed by the secretary of state for war controlled both the conduct offieldoperations and the administration of French forces, but it did so through two different chains of command. In the case of military operations, the secretary of state for war dealt directly with army commanders, but in the case of administration, the secretary worked through civilian officials dispatched to the provinces and to the armies in the field. Many administrative duties that today fall to uniformed soldiers were performed by men who held no military rank in the seventeenth century. Thus, the French maintained a curious split command; military officers led troops, while civilian bureaucrats paid and supplied them. 62 64 66

Richelieu in Corvisier, Louvois, 328. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:361. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:536.

63 A5

Andre, Le Tellier, 651. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:392.

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Not only did these two hierarchies differ in function; they differed in the kind of individuals that staffed them. In the main, seventeenth-century military officers identified themselves as the old nobility that traced its claims of elite status back to feudal service in arms; they were "sword" nobility. Administrative posts were held either by bourgeois non-nobles (roturiers) or by individuals whose families had only recentiy been elevated to the nobility through legal and administrative service; this newer type of aristocracy were "robe" nobility. Since administrative and judicial positions that bestowed aristocratic status on their holders could be purchased, buying such offices served as an entree into the nobility for bourgeois traders, lawyers, and civil servants. In his classic but now dated study, Franklin Ford drew a sharp line between the two nobilities in the seventeenth century and described the sword as bearing considerable animosity toward the robe, but more recent research, most notably by William Beik, portrays nobles of differing origins uniting in the provinces for their shared benefit.67 This volume on military institutions does not contradict the revisionist view in regard to class interests and provincial power, but nonetheless these pages argue that within the more restricted environment of the aristocratic officer corps, differences in origin and length of lineage mattered a great deal. The army was, after all, the defining arena for the sword nobility. Proud officers continually condemned men lacking proper lineages, rich men of "little birth" who used their money to rise to positions beyond their appropriate station. To the disdainful sword, men sprung from the middle class who purchased offices to gain aristocratic status, by nature robe nobles, were no more than jumped-up commoners. Diatribes against men with thin bloodlines condemn such recentiy ennobled individuals, or annoblis, with roturiers in the same breath.68 Therefore, while the sword-robe contrast may be a flawed analytical tool in many cases, it still retains substantial relevance within the army. Other complexities made seventeenth-century military administration different in practice and personnel from its modern descendent. Problems arose from the fact that, as mentioned earlier, many positions carried a price tag - in other words, an individual had to buy the right to exercise authority. This was true for both certain military commanders and for many civil administrators; venality was the general rule. Some positions became the personal, and inheritable, property of the holder. Men who owned such positions, or charges, tended to be independent of royal control to a disturbing degree, at least to a degree disturbing to absolutists. Reformers struggled to centralize the government by replacing offices owned outright with new administrators 67

68

Franklin F o r d , Robe and Sword ( C a m b r i d g e , M A : 1953); William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France ( C a m b r i d g e : 1985). See David Bien, "La reaction aristocratique avant 1789: Pexemple de Varmee" Annales: economies societes, civilizations, 29 (1974) for the best discussion of noblc-roturier-annobli tensions in the

army late in the eighteenth century.

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who only held a commission - that is, a revocable royal authorization to act in the king's behalf. Since venal offices produced money for the crown that sold them, there was pressure to increase the number of these offices particularly before 1659. This brought considerable and confusing duplication of function, as administrators multiplied without relation to efficiency. This tendency to create more officeholders was further exaggerated by the French tendency in civil and military administration to solve a problem by adding new levels of functionaries without eliminating the old, so that layer was imposed upon layer. This section concentrates upon the two most important of the civil administrators with the army, the commissaires desguerres and the intendants d'armee. Other officials receive mention when they help to place the main players into context. Together the commissaires and intendants provided the most essential services, so to understand their powers and problems is to understand much of military administration in general. Commissaires des g^erres The origins of the commissaires stretch back into the fifteenth century.69 Charles VII created commissaires deputes a faire les montres des £fens de guerre, empowered, as their name stated, to carry out reviews of troops, in this case the compagnies d'ordonnance. Later, these individuals, known by the time of Louis XI as commissaires desguerres, were joined by commissaires a la conduite, disciplinary officials attached to particular military units. In the late sixteenth century, both positions became venal. A third layer of these commissaires appeared in the commissaires provinciaux, who exercised the authority of a commissaire a la conduite over an area, not over a specific regiment. The commissaires des guerres had financial authority concerning reviews and pay; the commissaires a la conduite had none. The latter became quite numerous because they were temporarily attached to each regiment, where their judicial authority conflicted with the provosts in the field.70 A large part of the rationale behind this multiplication of commissaires had to do with the profits to be gained by selling the posts as opposed to any real gain in efficiency. In addition to the confusing assortment of commissaires, the late sixteenth century saw the creation of controleurs des guerres, who would become linked with commissaires. These officers did not answer to the secretary of state but to the controleur general des finances. While the different chain of command might suggest that they held financial authority at reviews, Parrott's research suggests that they performed essentially the same duties as commissaires des 69

70

This discussion of the evolution of commissaires from their creation through the 1640s is borrowed from Parrott's detailed, documented, and intelligent discussion of the commissaires. David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1985, 222-82. A n d r e , Le Tellier, 615.

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guerres. Andre claimed that controleurs were not venal offices, but Parrott demonstrates that they too were up for sale. In fact, the rationale for their creation again had more to do with greed than need. Regulations stated that both commissaires desguerres and controleurs desguerres were to attend reviews, but the controleurs seemed to have had little to do. Parrott interprets the regulations and correspondence as giving them the role of assistants to commissaires. Parrott's detailed analysis of administration comes to the conclusion that "the systems of both financial and judicial administration as they existed in 1635 were confused and ineffective - all too obviously the product of innumerable, quite separate, initiatives taken by different departments of the central government over a long period."71 In the early years of the war with Spain, the commissaires Aesguerres seemed to hold the promise of becoming the dominant figures in military administration in the field. As the war began, the first impulse of the government was to expand the authority of the commissaires to meet the challenge. In addition to duties at reviews, they received judicial functions plus authority to recruit soldiers, discharge units, quarter troops, and inspect fortifications. Local authorities appealed to commissaires^ as well as intendants^ for redress when troops got out of hand.72 The growing power and number of commissaires desguerres led the government to create charges of commissairesgeneraux desguerres to supervise commissaires in a given army.73 There were precedents for this before the war with Spain, but it escalated then. A chosen commissaire general had a voice in the Council of War under Mazarin, but the main responsibilities of this post remained with individual armies. Perhaps the most notable commissaire general was Alexandre de Prouville, Marquis de Tracy, who served as commissaire general with the Army of Germany, first under Guebriant and later under Turenne. Eventually, as we shall see, the rise of another method of control, the use ofintendants d'armee, undercut the commissaires generals and relegated them to obscurity. Parrott argues that senior positions such as commissaire were prestigious and analogous to maitres des requites^ a high post in the civil/legal administration. An ordinance of 1623 ordered that commissaires march at the left hand of the commanders in the field, a position of honor. 74 And from at least 1634 on, commissaires and controleurs des guerres enjoyed an exemption from the tattle^ the burdensome land tax.75 At the same time that commissaires extended their authority, the government muddied waters by giving in to financial temptation and creating more 71 72

73

74

Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 246. Patrick Landier, "Guerre, Violences, et Societe en France, 1635-1659," doctorat de troisieme cycle, dissertation, Universite de Paris IV, 1978), 20. For details on commissaires generaux, see Andre, Le Tellier, 449-55, and Bernard Kroener, Les routes et les etapes. Die bersorgung derfranzoschichenArmeen in Nordostfrankreich (1635-1661), 2 vols. (Munster: 1980), 28-32. A G , M R 1881, #19. 75 A n d r e , Le Tellier, 6 2 4 .

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and more positions of commissaires, controleurs, and related offices. On top of confusion, corruption afflicted the system, since venal officeholders attempted to make up some of their investment by raking in money illegally. The attempt to administer the army primarily through the commissaires des guerres failed, and the intendants rose to a dominant administrative position in their stead. It was a classic victory of commission-holder over officeowner. Since intendants held revocable commissions without a price tag, there was little pressure to multiply their charges, and they remained few in number and responsive to royal authority. With the rise of the intendants, the position of the commissaires desguerres regularized as subordinate agents of the intendants and their immediate assistants, the subdelegates. The commissaires broke down into two main groups, the sedentary commissairesprovinciaux desguerres, whose authority knew specific geographic bounds, and the commissaires desguerres, who functioned as their agents and as the agents of the intendants. Le Tellier wanted to "eliminate the multiplicity of useless individuals," but he had to wait until the return of peace.76 In 1661, he had his chance, cutting the number of commissaires and controleurs to twenty of each office.77 This pruning of unnecessary commissaires and controleurs with conflicting authorities could not but help to clear up some of the administrative muddle and allowed Le Tellier to retain only the most able men. By 1666, there were twenty-two areas with commissaires provinciaux in France.78 It would seem at this point that during peacetime, commissaires provinciaux sufficed, since there were no field armies in being. With the approach of war in 1667, the number of commissaires and controleurs rose to forty of each.79 If anything, the cut in the number of commissaires raised their prestige. Andre spoke of them as a corps d'elite.80 Commissaires des guerres now carried a wide variety of powers not restricted to reviews. The commission granting authority to Person as commissaire desguerres at the fortress of Rosas in November 1654 provides an excellent example of these powers. 81 As detailed in the commission, they included the following long list: to hold reviews, to certify rolls, to punish passe volants, to inspect the quartering rolls, to inspect the quality and weight of bread fed to the troops, to make sure that food and material stored in the fortress were of proper quality and quantity, to make sure stored items were used only in case of siege, to make sure the fortress was in good repair, to find out about disorders and to turn the culprits over to justice, to maintain discipline and 76 78 79 80

81

Le Tellier in Andre, Le Tellier, 626. 77 Andre, Le Tellier, 627. Andre gives a table of areas and commissaires. Andre, Le Tellier, 615. Andre, Le Tellier, 627. They still occupied a position of honor at the left of the commander of a unit on the march. 4 April 1664 ordinance in AG, M R 1881, #40. Commission to le sieur Person 20 November 1654 as reproduced in Chennevieres, Details militaires (Paris: 1750) in Claude C. Sturgill, Les commissaires desguerres et lyadministration de Varme'efrancaise,1715-1730 (Vincennes, France: 1985), 10-12.

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punish those who infringed against it, to admit no officer not known by him or the fortress governor, to receive the letters of commission of new replacement officers, and "to cause the military ordinances and regulations to be kept and observed." The role of the commissaires des guerres seems to have stabilized early in Louis's personal reign, changing little as the years went by. The military writer Gaya listed as the functions of commissaires'. holding fortnightly reviews, maintaining police and discipline, and taking oaths of new officers.82 In 1698, the intendant Turgot described commissaires in his jurisdiction: "There are commissaires des guerres in each fortress there to carry out reviews of troops and examine their number; in joint with mayors and alderman, to provide lodging for the troops; and in accord with the intendant, to supply even food for them." 83 Despite his wide range of authority, there were things a commissaire might not do. Commissaires seem to have had no direct control over funds; rather, this seems to have been left to the controleurs and their agents. Also, as Louvois insisted in a strong letter written to the commissaire Perou in 1665, "A commissaire des guerres has no right to claim any command over troops or over the inhabitants of the towns in his jurisdiction.5584 In the last years of Louis's life, the corps of commissaires reorganized slightly. An edict and a declaration of 1704 divided France into districts, each headed by a "commissaire ordinaire des provinciaux des guerres de conduite, police et discipline" He was assisted by several commissaires des guerres.85 Sturgill traces the organization of the commissaires at the close of Louis's rule and the beginning of the reign of his great-grandson, another boy-king, Louis XV.86 From a provincial commissaire, the line of authority ran both to the secretary of state for war and to the intendant and his subdelegates. The intendant answered to the secretary of state and the controleur general desfinances,as well as to the king. Another line of authority ran down from the controleur general through the tresoriers royaux and tresoriers de ^extraordinaire des guerres to the controleurs des guerres. As with the commissaires, the controleurs desguerres also obeyed the intendants. Below the controleurs des guerres ran the financial administration of a military district, the tresoriers prindpaux des troupes, tresoriers des troupes, payeurs des troupes, and receveurs. The position of commissaires held the potential for considerable abuse. They were essentially inspectors charged with guarding against cheating by officers and civilian suppliers. Although they did not directly pay captains or contractors, their approval was required before payments could be made. Thus, there were ill-gotten gains to be made by falsifying reports, particularly 82

83

84 85

Louis de Gaya, Le nouvel art de la guerre et la manure dont on la fait aujourd'huy en France (Paris, 1692), 41. Turgot memoir in 1697-98 memoirs for the education of the dauphin, AN, F fs 2210, fol. n o , in Andre Corvisier, Les Franfais et Varmee sous Louis XIV (Vincennes: 1975), 129. Letter of 7 May 1665 from Louvois to Perou in Rousset, Louvois, 1:77. Sturgill, Commissaires, 13. 86 Sturgill, Commissaires, 15.

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in collusion with military officers. As with all other abuses, this probably reached its height before 1659. Since these men had bought their offices, they were understandably anxious to make good on their investments by fair means or foul. Parrott reveals that they either conspired with officers to pad review musters, in order to pick up the extra allowances, or they were overly severe at reviews, in order to take the money saved by not paying men who were present. In any case, complaints about corrupt commissaires were rampant. Later Feuquieres complained that "The greed for gain and the ease of conspiring with the commissaires desguerres caused the reviews to be inaccurate.'587 Corvisier goes so far as to argue that because of the financial confusion and exhaustion of the period before 1659, the irregularities of the commissaires were "almost the only way of sustaining [faire vivre] the royal army,"88 since inflated reviews were the only means to coax money out of the beleaguered administration. Records demonstrate that at least some commissaires who committed abuses were still maintained in office. Servien complained about commissaire Le Vacher in 1635; he was arrested for corruption in 1638; yet he still remained in 1664, when Louvois criticized him as a man of low capacity.89 Le Teliier and Louvois did what they could to limit abuses. In 1671, Louvois went to great pains to catch the commissaire Aubert for falsifying reviews. A cornered captain admitted that for six years he had paid Aubert three soldiers3 wages to be warned forty-eight hours in advance of any review, so that the captain could arrange to pad his unit with passe volants.9Q

The Evolution of Intendants Seventeenth-century French administration is practically defined by the rise of intendants. The word intendant could be used for several charges; that which matters here is the intendant de la justice, police et finances. There were two types of these intendants^ those assigned to permanent geographical areas, known as intendants des provinces, or provincial intendants ^ and those assigned to field forces, known as intendants d'armee^ or army intendants.91 Whereas discussions on military administration usually focus only or primarily on the second, both had substantial military responsibilities. The origins of the office of the provincial intendant are less than crystal clear. They seem to lie in the inspection tours carried out by maitres des requites in the sixteenth century. These were important magistrates who handled complaints and requests to the king, served as judges, and provided 87 89

Feuquieres in Andre, Le Teliier, 625. 88 Corvisier, Louvois, 81-82. Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 281. Rousset, Louvois, 1:199-200. For a brief and authoritative account of the origins and duties of provincial intendants, see Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:502-63. The best work on the military intendants is Douglas Baxter, Servants of the Sword, French Intendants of the Army, 1630-70 (Urbana: 1976). My discussion owes much to these two sources.

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administrative services to the king at a high level. As part of their duties, they periodically toured the provinces, inspecting the conduct of the king's legal and administrative affairs. They were appointed by specific commissions, issued for a specified place for a limited time. Some of them took the title of intendant in the late sixteenth century, but the term fell out of use after 1600. It reappeared under the regency of Marie de Medici with the return of internal disorder, and thus the need to empower new individuals for extraordinary duties, and they began to take the title intendant again. France was divided into financial districts, called generalites, and these new intendants became the king's representatives there. In the period 1624-31, intendants served in fourteen of seventeen generalites. Often Richelieu receives credit for creating the office of intendant, particularly by the edict of May 1635, when in fact he simply placed greater reliance upon an already existing type of functionary who was more responsive to royal authority, being a commissionholder instead of an office-owner. From the early 1630s through the 1640s, the institution of intendants evolved into something new by collecting more authority over justice, finance, and administration. 92 In a real sense, the intendants proved an ally to the monarchy in lieu of the traditional office of governor, a provincial official of high birth and considerable power that had proven contentious in the past. The provincial intendants played a key role in the extension of royal absolutism, although the importance of intendants varied over time. They were royal inspectors by origin and nature, and they could become a nuisance or danger to independent-minded local authorities. One of the demands of the Fronde was the elimination of provincial intendants, and an edict of July 1648 revoked most of their commissions. However, they returned with the defeat of the Fronde. Early in the personal reign of Louis XIV, virtually all of France was administered by intendants supervising their generality, with Brittany being the last area of old France to receive a provincial intendant in 1689. By that point, provincial administration worked best when intendants and governors worked in tandem rather than pulling against one another. Army intendants evolved out of a centuries-old practice of sending royal commissioners to watch over the use of the king's ftinds in his armies. Such commissions date back to the late Middle Ages, and over time, the responsibilities of these commissioners grew. The historian Douglas Baxter suggests that the title intendant had its base in two separate commissions for "the charge and intendance of our finances" and for "the charge and intendance of justice" with royal armies, as shown in commissions issued under Henri IV.93 He sees the first intendants not as those with that exact title but with individuals empowered with intendance of the king's affairs. Arguing in this way, the first sort of "intendant" answered to the surintendant desfinancesand 92

93

Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:512. See, as well, the description of intendants in Andrew Lossky, Louis XIV and the French Monarchy (New Brunswick, NJ: 1994). Baxter, Servants of the Sword, 14.

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the other to the chancellor. Neither was a functionary of the secretary of state charged with the conduct of war, and by this logic, an army required at least two intendants. No later than 1630, army intendants existed in name and fact. Each royal army had one or more. Commissions at this point varied; some stipulated only finance, some only justice, and some, as that for Charles Le Roy and Dreux d'Aubray in 1630, included the "intendance de la justice et finances.5'94 This last commission displays another characteristic of the institution at this early stage, as two intendants were appointed to the same army. Multiple intendants seemed to be needed at first because, as a letter of 1635 insisted, to do the work right in Conde's army would require "one intendant des finances and two intendants de la justice at the same time. 5'95 In contrast, the commission granted solely to Le Tellier to serve as intendant with the army of Italy in 1640 was quite complete in its delegation of authority over finance, supply, and discipline.96 Parrott provides the best account of army intendants during the first years of the war with Spain. Parrott argues that their power grew owing to the pressure of events during the war, so that reading back the full-blown institution of the 1670s into the 1630s and 1640s distorts reality, committing "the fallacy of inexorable development."97 He argues that at least before the Fronde, the intendant''$ authority was shaky enough that his success depended upon his relations with the military commander of the army to which he was posted. Should the two clash, the ministry would not support the intendant. Kroener has shown that at the same time, the intendants collided with the authority of the tresoriers de France, but the intendants eventually held the upper hand in that ongoing clash of authorities. 98 After the Fronde, intendants became more secure and enjoyed the support of the secretary of state for war. Le Tellier regarded intendants as his personal supporters; in fact, his intendants were often his clients, relatives, and friends.99 But the secretary could not always impose his choice; as late as 1673, Turenne vetoed the appointment of Charuel as his intendant, and Louvois backed down. 100 The personal reign of Louis XIV commenced in peace. Without armies in the field, there was no need for army intendants. This, Baxter argues, brought something of a resurgence of the authority of commissaires des jjuerres.101 During this quiet period, according to Baxter, Le Tellier groomed a small number of select individuals to play this role whenever war began - men like Jacques Chareul, Etienne Carlie, and Louis Robert. 102 They received a series of lesser commissions to give them the experience that a later charge as 94

95 97 98 100 102

Baxter provides a list of intendants and their commissions, 1630-91. Baxter, Servants of the Sword, 209-27. AG, A : 24, fo. 349, 30 May 1635. 96 Andre, Le Tellier, 49-5161. Parrott, " The Administration of the French Army," 284. Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 12-23. " Andre, Le Tellier, 635-37. 101 Rousset, Louvois, 1:492-93. Baxter, Servants of the Sword, 139-40. Baxter, Servants of the Sword, 143.

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intendtmt would require. When war began again in 1667, one army intendant served with each of the three major forces. The evolution of the intendant was not yet complete, but by 1670, Baxter asserts, it was well along the way toward completion.

Provincial and Army Intendants As these institutions took full form early in the personal reign of Louis XIV, provincial and army intendants shared key military responsibilities, a point not made clear enough in many accounts of these institutions. During wartime, the authority of the two kinds of intendants and their agents could overlap. Since an army intendant held sway in a particular army, while a provincial intendant administered a generalite, if a field army marched over French territory, there was the possibility of conflict between authorities. But during intervals of peace, without forces assembled along the frontiers, the king issued no commissions to army intendants, except for unusual expeditions outside France, such as those the French sent to aid the Hapsburgs or the Venetians against the Ottomans. So in peacetime, the provincial intendants ranked as the highest military administrators below the secretary of state for war. The concern of military historians with campaign history, and thus with army intendants, has obscured this fact. The regular duties of provincial intendants, peacetime and wartime, covered a broad range. Primarily, the intendant concerned himself with financial matters, such as the collection of taxes, most notably the taille, and the supervision of the tax farms. He also carried out numerous general administrative tasks, from regulating the royal post to arresting beggars. The intendant bore the responsibility for maintaining public order. His duties toward the military forces in his generalite included supervising recruitment, arranging for the feeding and housing of troops in transit, and maintaining discipline among officers and the rank and file. In wartime, a large percentage of the troops served in garrisons throughout the year; this proportion can be reasonably estimated at 40 percent. Such troops remained the responsibility of provincial intendants, who also bore virtually all the other provincial duties concerned with maintaining the war effort. The variety of tasks proved to be such a burden that eventually intendants required a series of assistants, or subdelegates. As late as 1682, the king sought to limit the number and functions of subdelegates, but necessity drove the intendants to multiply the subdelegates, most notably after 1688. For example, by 1700 there were thirty subdelegates in thcjjeneralite of Moulins, fifteen each in Chalons and Besancon, and sixty in Brittany.103 An edict of 1704 created offices of subdelegate in the major city of each election; subdelegates had become so useful that they became compulsory.104 Also, Baxter argues that the provincial intendants were so overburdened with their other duties that they, in fact, delegated much of 103

Mousnier, The Institutions of France, 2:529.

104

Marion, Dictionnaire, 519.

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their military authority to the commissaires provinciaux des guerres in their jurisdictions. When the French armies occupied enemy territory, the king appointed intendants of conquered regions. While their commissions were less permanent than provincial intendants^ they too were assigned a particular area and exercised authority over it in ways very similar to provincial intendants. Intendants of conquered areas also supervised the collection of "contributions," or war taxes, imposed on occupied populations. So concerned were they with military affairs that there was cca hazy borderline between an army intendant and that of a newly conquered area," writes Baxter. In fact, army intendants might also have received the responsibility of administering the territory occupied by that army.105 An army intendant carried a commission to administer a particular field army on campaign. His responsibilities included the critical tasks of feeding, paying, clothing, and arming the king's troops. He also stood at the top of that army's disciplinary system. The nature of the army intendanfs duties allowed him to concentrate on military affairs alone, freeing him from the need for a corps of subdelegates working directly under his direction; instead, his most important assistants were the ubiquitous commissaires desguerres serving that particular army. In addition, the intendant directed those officials appointed by the controleur general des finances - that is, the tresoriers, payeurs, and receveurs. Although an intendant attended the meetings of war councils held by the marshal or general commanding the army, he, of course, did not have a command voice beyond advising on matters of supply. To eliminate conflicting lines of authority, an army intendant might on occasion be the intendant of the generalite that bordered the area of the army's operations. Feuquieres argued that this was the best solution because a provincial intendant could use his territorial authority to make sure that his army had what it needed.106 In 1630, Le Roy and d'Aubray held responsibility for both the province of Provence and the military forces there. Much later, in 1683, Chauvelin was both intendant of Franche-Comte and intendant of the army formed under Boufflers, while in 1689 and 1690, Bouchu was the intendant of Dauphine and the intendant of the French army of Piedmont. 107 Both provincial and army intendants were robe nobles. Provincial intendants generally served as maitres de requites before rising to an intendance. Army intendants had more varied origins, often as maitres des requites^ but also as commissaires des guerres^ legal officials, or even provincial intendants. All were wealthy men. Some complained that intendants were making money on war, 105

106 107

For example, this was the case with Louis Robert in Holland in 1672. Baxter, Servants of the Sword, 223. Feuquieres, Memoires du marquis de Feuquieres (Londres: 1736), 160. Baxter, Servants of the Sword, 225-26. Belhomme, Uarme'efranfaiseen 1690, 147, stated "When one formed an army on a frontier, the provincial intendant was named intendant of the army." This did occur, but it was not universal.

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as Villars grumbled in his "Traite," but this seems not to have been the case.108 As mentioned earlier, secretaries of state appointed army intendants as part of their patronage, so the intendants were clients,fideles,of the secretaries. As such, secretaries wanted their own men in office; Sublet de Noyers kept only one of fifteen intendants employed by Servien, and Le Tellier kept only five of twenty employed by Sublet. Between 1644 and 1691, forty-two of 131, or 32 percent, of commissions issued for army intendants went to relatives of Michel Le Tellier, a trend that peaked during the Dutch War when sixteen of twenty-three commissions, or 70 percent, went to the Le Tellier clan.109 The personnel of military administration, represented best in the positions of secretary of state for war, the army intendants and the commissaire des guerres was in place at the onset of the Dutch War. There is no reason to believe that it would not be adequate to the task as long as it had the resources to do the job. However, if French military administration suffered from a weakness, that weakness lay precisely in resource mobilization, a key issue that remained outside the power of the secretary of state for war and entirely enmeshed with French society and politics. THE TRADITIONAL MILITARY

OFFICES

A handful of honored military offices stood in potential conflict with the secretary of state for war and his commissaires and intendants. These were the constable, grand master of artillery, colonel general of infantry, and colonel general of cavalry; all four were elevated to the level of "crown offices," a status that gave them the highest prestige and implied special access to the king. Historians have often discussed the decline of these offices as an indicator of the greater centralization of military administration in the grand siecle. They seemed to represent an older tradition in which the great sword nobles of France ran the military establishment, often in lieu of direct royal authority and certainly in contrast to a system in which the army was maintained by high placed, but only recently ennobled, robe civilians who faithfully served the secretary of state for war and the monarch. Traditional historical interpretations by such deservedly respected historians as Caillet, Rousset, Avenel, Andre, Corvisier, and even Mousnier have viewed the crown offices as roadblocks to centralized administration, as obstacles that had to be removed before the rational and modern systems of the secretaries of state for war could operate effectively. Much may be said for their arguments, but the most authoritative recent commentary on these offices under the Richelieu regime stands in contrast to their views. David 108 109

BN, f. fr. 6257, Claude Louis Hector Villars, "Traite de la guerre de campagne," 29-30. Andre Corvisier, "Clienteles et fidelites dans l'armees francaise aux i7e et i8e siecles," in Y. Durand, ed. Hommage a Roland Mousnier. Clienteles etfidelitesen Europes a Vepoque moderne (Paris: 1981), 216.

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Parrot* disagrees fundamentally with traditional descriptions of these offices during the first half of the seventeenth century and, consequently, casts the movement for reform in a different light. Historians need to take into account the analyses put forth both by past luminaries and by the revisionist Parrot*. Constable Writing during the nineteenth century, Caillet described the abolition of the constable in 1627 as the most important military reform made by Richelieu, and this judgment is repeated in more modern works.110 To Caillet and others, the constable, an office with medieval origins, was a pretender to supreme commander of the army. Consequently, the elimination of the office by Richelieu represented a quantum leap in the cardinal's drive to increase and centralize royal authority. Legally, the constable commanded the army in the king's absence - no small claim to power.111 Richelieu himself referred to the office as dangerous cc by the absolute authority that it gave to the holder."112 The constable did have control of the ordinaire des guerres, although this, Parrot* points out, amounted to only 0.5 percent of expenditure.113 The constable also stood at the peak of the army's legal system, directing its highest court. By the most extreme interpretation, it would have been difficult for the king to command or control his army without the concurrence of the constable. Moreover, the constable possessed a number of lucrative rights. He could claim as his own all the goods within a town that had fallen to siege, except gold, prisoners, and the copper and bronze claimed by the grand master of artillery. Also, the constable received one day's pay from all officers, save from princes of the blood and their households. In reality, however, the constable had been in "obvious decline" for some time, according to Parrot*.114 In addition, except for his leverage on the ordinaire des guerres and his legal role, the constable had no direct administrative responsibility in the army. Thus, the post was rich but expendable by the early seventeenth century. When constable Lesdiguieres died in 1627, Richelieu let the office die with him, transferring the legal authority to the marshals. Although this act may have eliminated a major office that could have frustrated the rise of the secretary of state for war, the rationale for abolishing the office had more to do with court politics than with a drive to centralize military authority. After 110 111

112 113 114

Caillet, De Vadministration en France, 363. For accounts of the constable, see Francois Sicard, Histoire des institutions militaires desfranfais, 4 vols. (1834), 1:156-60; Marion, Dictionnaire, 129-30; Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 312-14. Richelieu in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 312. Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 313. Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 314.

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Lesdiguieres died, the obvious candidate for the office was Montmorency. Richelieu had just driven Montmorency from the office of admiral, albeit with a substantial cash settlement, and Montmorency clearly was not among R i c h e l i e u ' s ^ ^ . Therefore, the strongest rationale to eliminate the office was Richelieu's desire to keep such a lucrative and prestigious post out of Montmorency's hands. Parrott suggests that had Richelieu been able to put forward one of his fiddles as constable, he would not have abolished the office.115 In fact, the 1627 abolition was apparently not regarded as permanent, since it was repeated in April 1643.116

The Grand Master of Artillery The grand master of artillery exercised an authority as ancient and independent as that held by the constable before 1627. There were masters of artillery in France even before there were cannon. This apparent oxymoron is explained by the fact that large siege engines before the age of gunpowder also went by the name "artillery.55117 So Guillaume de Dourdan took the title of master of the artillery of the Louvre in 1291, and the grand masters evolved from this office. For a time, the actual artillery officers served under the grand master of arbeletiers, but this post was abolished. Francois I created the actual post of grand master of artillery in 1515 to control all the equipment and personnel of the royal artillery train, and in 1599, Henri IV elevated the post to considerable dignity and awarded it to Sully.118 Sully organized the office into one of great independence, directly under the king, and complete with its own budget lines in the royal accounts, the ordinaires and extraordinaires de Vartillerie. In theory, the grand master exercised control over every aspect of the arm, from the founding of the cannon and shot to the naming of artillery officers. He also was colonel of the royal artillery regiment, which first appeared as the Fusiliers du Roi in 1671, to become rechristened the Regiment Royal Artillerie in 1693. When in the field, he directed sieges and received all bells and copper utensils from towns that had fallen to siege. The grand master even ran his own judicial system to judge those under his authority and crimes committed near the artillery park.119 The grand master headed a group of administrators who discharged his numerous duties. He was assisted by a bailli, a lieutenant general, zprocureur du roi, and zgreffier. Under these officers served a lieutenant, a surintendant despoudres etsalpetres, a commissairegeneral, and several lieutenants provindaux. 115 p a r r o t t 5 "The Administration of the French Army," 313. 116 p a r r o t t 5 "The Administration of the French Army," 314. 117 See Sicard, Histoire des institutions militaries, 1:164-70 and Andre, Le Tellier, 500-2 for short discussions of the office of grand master. 118 David Buisseret, Sully and the growth of centralized government in France, 1598-1610 (London: 1968), 140-69. 119 Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 228-29.

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Richelieu maneuvered to reduce the power of the grand master by placing his own man in the office. Henri IV had done this by appointing the faithful and effective Sully, who was then succeeded by his less effective son (161821). When the cardinal could, he passed the post on to his cousin, the compliant duke de La Meilleraye, in 1634. Under La Meilleraye, Richelieu took over many of the functions of the grand master for himself, eroding the authority of the office.120 By this point, Parrott argues, the grand master concerned himself with little more than the purchase and distribution of ammunition. 121 Richelieu's successors continued the method of controlling this lucrative charge by granting it only to those loyal to the court, often men closely bound to the king or his first minister. In 1648, the amiable duke de La Meilleraye was replaced by his son, who was so linked to the ministry that he married one of the nieces of cardinal Mazarin and took the Mazarin name himself as the duke de Mazarin. After holding the charge until 1669, the duke sold it to a protege of Louvois, the count de Lude, who occupied the office until 1685. The duke du Maine, illegitimate son of Louis XIV, took the post in 1694, passing it on to his son in 1710, who held it until it was abolished in 1755. So while the office of grand master remained, it did not possess its original powers, and it did not have to be abolished because it had become allied to the king and his ministers.

Colonel General of Infantry After that of constable, the colonel general of infantry was the most important, and valuable, of all military charges.122 Francois I created the post in 1542 as a royal commission, but it became a venal office under Henry II in 1547. In 1582, Henri III appointed the son of one of his favorites, the duke d'Epernon, to the office, and in 1584, the king further elevated the post by making it a crown office. The duke held the post for sixty years, until his death in 1642. Then his son, the new duke d'Epernon, rose to this office and occupied it until he died in 1661, but at this point, Louis XIV abolished the office. Most historical accounts claim that the influence and power of the colonel general was great. As the title implies, he was the chief officer of French infantry, but beyond this he was also the colonel of all French infantry regiments. Consequently, the colonel general was the only true infantry colonel among all the French regiments, with the right to nominate or appoint all 120 p arrotl - 5 "The Administration of the French Army," 321-22. 121 Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 323. 122 For brief treatments of the colonel general, see Sicard, Histoire des institutions militaires, 1:198-203; Rousset, Louvois, 1:175; and Andre, Le Tellier^ 158-65; Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 314-20.

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their officers. Patronage possibilities from this right could be colossal. In addition, the first company of each permanent regiment, the colonel's company, belonged to him. The captain of this company, who thus took the place of the colonel general, bore the rank of lieutenant colonel. As a sign of the honor due the colonel general, the lieutenant colonel marched ahead of the actual regimental commander, styled the mestre de camp. Only with the demise of the colonel general, Rousset insisted, would "all the infantry officers . . . be named or agreed upon by the king, all the brevets prepared and signed by the secretary of state for war."123 Here Parrott diverges from standard accounts insofar as they deal with the history of the office under the two dukes d'Epernon. Henri III raised the office of colonel general to the status of a court office in 1584 to strengthen Epernon so that he could better support the king in a troubled court. This elevation led to a brief apogee of the colonel general, during which Epernon exercised the de facto power to appoint all officers of infantry. But, Parrott argues, this power did not exist before 1584 and would not exist after 1588, when court intrigues achieved the disgrace of Epernon, who was temporarily suspended from office. The assassination of his patron Henri III the next year meant that Epernon would never again regain his position of influence. Most importantly, while the colonel general continued to nominate officers for commissions, Henri IV and his successors refused to accept these nominations as binding. Two things are to be noted here. First, the definition and power of office had more to do with court politics than with any concern for military efficiency. Second, the colonel general only briefly enjoyed a level of authority that historians define as the standard perquisites of the office. Epernon's decline did not end in 1588, since he remained an active player in a losing game of court intrigue. Henri IV imposed new restrictions on Epernon, forcing him to give up the general right to make nominations and left him only the right to nominate every other captain in the guards and captains for the permanent regiments. In addition, he retained the right to appoint officers in the colonel's companies and, on the regimental level, sergeant majors, their aides, surgeons, and chaplains. By the 1630s, Epernon retained control over only the colonel's companies and certain regimental staff posts. But his troubles continued, because as punishment for his role in the loss of the battle of Fuentarrabia in 1638, Richelieu stripped him of the office. After Epernon died in 1642, an ordinance denied his son the right of succession, and the office was abolished in 1643. However, Louis XIII died that year, and the regency government restored the colonel general and awarded the office to the new duke Epernon, probably because the weak regency sought to gain support and pacify the great nobles. Although the colonel general still commanded wealth and patronage, this restored office obviously possessed nothing like the power it had held during the period 1584-88. In 1649, the duke secured the right of succession for his own son, 123

Rousset, Louvois, 1:175.

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but the far more secure situation of Louis XIV in 1661 permitted him to abolish the office altogether. By pointing to this earlier fall from grace, Parrott argues that the later elimination of the colonel general was less impressive an act than most works would contend.124 Perhaps it might be correct to interpret the elimination of the colonel general of infantry in the same light as the fall of Fouquet; it announced Louis's intentions to take charge. The Colonel General of Cavalry The last court office was the colonel general of cavalry, which goes back in one form or another to the fifteenth century but was only raised to an office

in title by Charles IX in 1565, as colonel general de la cavalerie legere.125 Unlike

the colonel general of infantry, that for cavalry survived throughout the ancien regime, only to be suppressed in 1790. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the powers of the colonel general of cavalry were similar to those of the colonel general of infantry. Even as Louvois worked to erode some of the power of the office, it retained great monetary value. Berenger estimates the value of the post during Turenne's tenure as 600,000 livres, which approached the worth of all his lands, valued at 800,000.126 If abolition of the colonel general of infantry marked an assertion of Louis XIVs independence of the old military officers, why was not the colonel general of cavalry abolished as well? Louis Andre explains this apparent diversion from the course set by Sublet, Le Tellier, and Louvois as being quite the opposite of what it seems, since for Andre preservation of the cavalry position aided royal authority.127 At midcentury, 1622-57, the colonels general were three nonentities: the duke of Angouleme, the count of Alais, and the duke de Joyeuse. This may have equaled a de facto elimination of the office, and since such men were no threat, Richelieu, Mazarin, and Le Tellier saw no need to attack their position. In addition, during the war with Spain, the king issued commissions for subsidiary colonels general of cavalry to manage disciplinary problems better in thefield,thus aiding, not challenging, the will of monarch and ministers.128 When the post became vacant in 1657, rather than let it die, Louis awarded it to Turenne, as a reward for his faithful service in the latter stages of the Fronde and as a counter to influence that Conde might exert. Of course, once awarded to Turenne, the grandeur of that individual made abolition of the office inconceivable. Since a colonel general continued in the cavalry, the highest regimental officer remained a mestre de camp, rather than a colonel. 124

Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 317-18. For details on the colonel general of cavalry, see Sicard, Histoire des institutions militaires, 1:206-10; Andre, Le Tellier, 149-50; Rousset, Louvois, 1:175-76. 126 Berenger, Turenne, 483. The figure of 600,000 livres also equals the value of the office of secretary of state, which Berenger puts at 600,000 to 900,000 livres. 127 This is the interpretation offered by Andre, Le Tellier, 149-50. 128 p a r r o t t , "The Administration of the French Army," 320-21.

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Even under the influential Turenne and his nephew, who assumed the office at Turenne's death in 1675, the colonel general of cavalry did not challenge the secretary of state for war. Rousset argues that the authority of the colonels general declined, "slowly, but constantly, invaded by continual usurpation by Louvois, denied their essential rights, reduced to their exterior and honorific privileges.35129 The staff of the colonel general included other high-ranking and prestigious posts. Mestre de camp general of cavalry was the greatest plum. One of its occupants, the contentious Bussy-Rambutin, who continually quarreled with his master, Turenne, called it "one of the best [plus belles] charges of war."130 When the colonel general of cavalry decided which field army he would serve with, the mestre de camp would go to another to exercise his command. As a move to reduce the power of the colonel general, Le Tellier created a third major officer to share the authority. Whereas the colonel general and the mestre de camp general were venal offices, this new position came only by revocable commission and thus went by the title of commissaire general of cavalry. He functioned much as an inspector. 131 Other Colonels General Several other colonels general existed for short or long periods during the grand siecle^ but they were not crown offices. Most prestigious among them was the colonel general des Suisses et Grisons^ created by Charles IX in 1571. This officer possessed certain honors, including the first company of the Gardes suisses; however, his authority was not extensive. In addition, a series of colonels general led various other foreign troops in French service and operated primarily as go-betweens for the troops with the secretary of state for war. Such were colonels general for Italians, Corsicans, Polish, English, and Scottish soldiers. As with the troops concerned, these colonels general seemed to serve for relatively brief periods. The colonel general of lansquenets, created in 1544, passed from the scene only in 1632; the colonel general of Polish troops disappeared in 1654; and that for English units was eliminated in 1660. Beyond the colonels general for foreign infantry, Louis XIV created a new colonel general for mounted troops when in 1668 he instituted the colonel general of dragoons to head this new category of regiment, which multiplied late in his reign. The foregoing survey of the fate of the crown officers discourages any assertion that some single great act, or a few great acts, snatched the army away from chaos, or away from the control of the great nobility, and returned it to the king and his secretary of state for war. Neither the elimination of the 129 131

Rousset, Louvois, 1:176. 13° Bussy-Rambutin in Andre, Le Tellier, 151. For details on the mestre de camp general and the commissaire general, see Andre, Le Tellier, 150-54.

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constable in 1627 nor the abolition of the colonel general of infantry in 1661 rate as such. An overview demonstrates that the great offices declined in authority incrementally over decades. In the case of the colonel general of infantry at least, this decline began in the sixteenth century and simply continued in the seventeenth. When offices were abolished, it was not because the monarch or his ministers had finally struck down a powerful source of opposition and seized its power for themselves but that the office was already a weak and hollow position that the monarch could eliminate with relative impunity. I N S P E C T O R S : THE LIMITATIONS OF CIVILIAN CONTROL The decline and elimination of the court offices discussed earlier increased the relative power of the civilian secretary of state for war and his robe agents, although perhaps not as much as usually believed. But however strong the secretary of state and his immediate agents became, it is important to realize that the military administration could not function solely through civilian officials. One of the duties of the old court offices had been to maintain and survey the combat competence of units. In a sense, the inspectors general created under Louis XIV inherited these functions that only an actual soldier could perform. The inspectors represented a different kind of military administrator, precisely because they were first and foremost soldiers. Contrary to most accounts, the idea of sending an inspector out to French troops predated Louis XIV's famous actions. Mazarin wrote to Turenne in 1657: "Orders have been sent to marshal d'Aumont to have the general inspection of all the troops who remain in the Boulonnais and on the frontier there."132 It is not clear, however, if this commission to inspect troops involved the same duties that would later be given to the inspectors general. In any case, as part of the effort to improve the level of tactical performance in the French army, Louis XIV created the Regiment du Roi in 1662 as a special training ground for officers and as an example of the standards to which Louis hoped his entire army would ascribe. In 1667, its lieutenant colonel Martinet (the colonel was no less than the Sun King himself) became the first inspector general of infantry. Of course, the name Martinet became a synonym for meticulous attention to military detail and strict discipline. It is clear from the start that part of the goal in creating the inspector general was to apply high and uniform standards to the army and thus to regularize the quality and ability of French infantry. Louvois wrote to his father in 1669: "If all that I will see of the troops, from this point on until my return, is in as fine a state as that which I have seen up to now, the King has reason to be entirely satisfied and to persuade himself that if the visits of 132

Mazarin to Turenne, 1 December 1657, Mazarin, Lettres, 8:227.

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Monsieur Martinet continue, in three months there will be no difference between all the rest of the infantry and his Regiment du Roi."133 A prime method in this quest was for Martinet to shake up the officer corps, or in the words of Louvois, "to wake up a little the officers who are sleeping." 134 This would also require an enhanced sense of hierarchy and obedience. "You ought to make understood by all officers who command units that the intention of the king is that they reestablish obedience without reply with regard to the officers who are their subalterns, and that, to achieve this effect, the first who happens to disobey will be broken.5'135 In relation to this directive, Corvisier concludes "Never had a discipline this strict been imposed on the officers."136 The initiative with infantry led to one with cavalry as well, and in 1669, Louis named Fourilles to the new post of inspector general of cavalry. One might wonder why Louis needed officer inspectors when the civilian intendants and commissaires des guerres were already on the scene. After all, when the inspectors concerned themselves with numbers and equipment, their duties overlapped with civil commissaires. The inspectors were there, however, to judge what only a commissioned officer dare judge - the fighting quality of the unit. To a degree, this involved counts of men, arms, and clothing, but it also required them to enforce standards of tactical competence, something outside the range of the civilians. Perhaps the need for inspectors was dictated by professional and social differences between officers and civil administrators. An experienced soldier could command the respect of another when the business of soldiering was the subject, and a noble of the sword could pretend to speak of such matters with both military and social authority, whereas a robe administrator could not. Robe nobles, annoblis, or even bourgeois might be fine for running the business of war, but the fighting ought to be left to the sword. Therefore, the need for inspectors as an integral part of military administration signifies the limits of civil administration in the French army of the grand siecle. As the army expanded, so did the corps of inspectors and inspector generals. In 1689, as the army geared up for the Nine Years' War, the number of inspectors general of infantry rose to four, each a general officer responsible for a particular region: (i) Flanders and Hainault, (2) the northeast provinces, (3) the Lyonnais, Dauphine, and Provence, and (4) Languedoc, Roussillon, and Guyenne. Below these inspector generals served inspectors, who carried the rank of brigadier.137 Later in that conflict, Louis established sixteen inspectors for the army.138 These inspectors surveyed the number and condition of troops and in addition signed the authorizations for military payment presented to the extraordinaire desguerres. In other words, some of their duties overlapped with those of the intendants and commissaires desguerres. 133 134 135 136

AG, A ! 24i, 19 May 1669, letter from Louvois to Le Tellier, in Rousset, Louvois, 1:210. AG, A124i, 19 May 1669, letter from Louvois to Le Tellier, in Rousset, Louvois, 1:210. AG, A!232, 18 March 1669, letter from Louvois to Martinet, in Rousset, Louvois, 1:211. Corvisier, Louvois, 189. 137 Corvisier, Louvois, 349-50. 138 Marion, Dictionnaire, 292.

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CONCLUSION This overview of French military administration reveals no single administrative revolution, not under Richelieu, Le Tellier, or Louvois; instead, the pattern was one of incremental change. Because of the current state of knowledge, it is tempting to conclude that administrative reform ended with Louvois, but detailed studies of administration from 1691 to 1715 may demonstrate that it continued to adjust and change to the demands of even larger armies. In any case, what some historians have portrayed as great leaps were more like small steps, the product of long evolution and a fortuitous opportunity to realize plans long laid. The character of that administrative change did not seem to have matched the dramatic increase in the size of the army and the consequent growth in the demands that it made upon the state. Still, obviously, military and state administration responded to the military challenge, as witnessed by the fact that army expansion did not produce in the Dutch War the chaos that attended the war with Spain. Perhaps the apparent paradox of more moderate administrative development in the face of radical military growth was made possible by the way in which services were delivered. Central French military administration did not so much provide services directly to the troops as it supervised the work of others charged with feeding, clothing, equipping, and housing the army. In a sense, then, all these officials of the French military administration were inspectors, meant to examine and certify the work of contractors and officers. The next four chapters explore that system in greater detail.

Food and Fodder

F

OR an army to fight, it must eat; victory is seldom the companion of starvation. Hence, logistics form the basis of military action, and the fate of empires can depend on bread. The giant of thcjjmnd siecle was no exception to this rule. Food for men and fodder for horses were both essential, but they posed very different problems for administrators and generals. Building upon the experience of the previous century, Diderot's Encylopedie put it clearly, "There are two sorts of subsistence: the first which are found in the field, like forage, and often grains for distributions. The others are found at a distance, like bread, wine, meat, and the variety of fournitures for the army.551 In general, fodder could be gathered in the field, although this was no easy task, and it brought its own risks. But food had to be brought to the army, often from magazines and army ovens. Around this second chore, an expensive, complicated, but absolutely necessary, system grew up, or to be exact systems, since practices differed depending on whether troops were in the field, in garrison, or on the road. The seventeenth century, particularly the administrations of Le Tellier and Louvois, garners praise as an era in which the state took upon itself more and more responsibility for the care of its soldiers. No service could be more vital than the dependable supply of food and fodder for the king's forces, and Louis XIV was well aware of that fact. For the Sun King, the proper care of his troops stood as a solemn moral obligation: "just as the soldier owes obedience and submission to those who command him, the commander owes his troops care for their subsistence.552 It was a matter of honor: "The clever general never undertakes an affair that requires time without examining all the things necessary to sustain his men. . . . [I] t is inhuman to put 1 2

Denis Diderot, et al., Encyclopedic 17 vols. text, 12 vols. plates (Paris: 1751-65), 15:582. Louis XIV, Memories de Louis XW, Charles Dreyss, ed., 2 vols. (Paris: i860), 2:250. IO7

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brave men in danger of losing their lives under conditions in which valor will not guarantee success.353 The growth of the army implies that French military administration under Louis created a new capacity to feed such large forces in the field, a task that could be enormous. Villars reported that his army in 1709 required 1,200 sacks of grain each day, enough to make as many as 216,000 rations of bread.4 Logic and history concur that French administration developed sufficiently to meet the logistic challenge, but questions remain. Did this change occur in a revolutionary or evolutionary manner? To what extent were men and animals fed through the regular efforts of supply services, and to what extent did armies feed themselves by living off the country? Only a detailed examination of French logistics can answer these queries. FOOD Bread: The Basic Food "The necessity for foodstuffs is the first thing that a prince ought to think about.555 So Louis XIV stated his concern to feed his armies, for even in the ancien regime^ armies marched on their stomachs, and French stomachs must be filled with bread. His marshal Villars put it another way, "We can go some time without money, but without bread it is impossible.556 Bread was essential; even though French armies could also eat biscuit, it was less palatable and took far more fuel to cook, making it too expensive. Supplying the staff of life endlessly challenged seventeenth-century military administration, for should it be lacking, armies dissolved, campaigns withered, and strategy went begging, begging for a crust of bread. The methods and personnel that supplied this vital need in thejjrand siecle had roots in the previous century. In the early sixteenth century, captains took personal responsibility for their companies, purchasing bread directly from the population around them. Troops were also supplied by requisitions carried out by local officials and set off against taxes. Furthermore, the monarchy turned to contractors during the wars of midcentury, but this method suffered when the state failed to pay the contractors.7 In response to problems, Henri II (1547-59) began what the historian Audouin claimed was "a revolution in the administration of food supplies,55 although it seems clear Audouin exaggerated.8 Without abolishing older practices, Henri II instituted new ones. Troops in garrisons continued to receive their rations through the older system of purchase and local requisition; however, troops on campaign got their bread directly from royal 3 4

s 7 8

Louis XIV in John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (New York: 1968), 203. Claude Louis Hector Villars, Memoires du marechal de Villars, ed. Vogue, 5 vols. (Paris: 188495), 3:42. Louis XIV, Memoires de Louis XIV, 2:170. 6 Villars, Memoires, 3:47. Xavier Audouin, Histoire de Vadministration de la guerre, 4 vols. (Paris: 1811), 2:39-45. Audouin, Histoire de Vadministration de la guerre, 2:43-50.

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administrators. Such a contrast between the method used to supply garrison forces and that used in the field would remain throughout the ancien regime. On campaign, officials now bought grain, had it stored and processed into bread, and, finally, supervised its direct distribution to the soldiers. The ordinances of the 1550s created two commissairesgeneral des vivres to supervise this system, while other major commissaires served under the orders of these top officials; those actually with the army bore the title of commis des vivres, and commissaires des vivres served in every province of France.9 All agents justified their accounts before the chambre des comptes. But this system of direct state supply could break down, and Henri III let out what the historian Audouin considered to be the first modern contracts, marches or traites, to private entrepreneurs when the foregoing methods failed. Audouin found what he believed to be the first marches granted in 1575, when the general commanding the siege of Lusignan had exhausted local requisition purchases by commissaires}® However, James Wood discusses a 1572 contract with merchants from Niort to supply the camp at La Rochelle in 1572 with 30,000 twelve-ounce loaves each day, 10,800 pints of wine, and 20,000 pounds of beef.11 Such marches stipulated the exact weight and price of rations and set the pattern for later agreements with munitionnaires, entrepreneurs who contracted to supply pain de munition and other foodstuffs. The reliance upon private suppliers at Lusignan also demonstrated that recourse to munitionnaires amounted to an appeal to credit. Royal agents had to have the money up front to buy grain, but at Lusignan, they ran out of funds. Munitionnaires put up their own assets in return for installment payments over the life of the contract; thus they provided food immediately in expectation of future payment. Appeals to munitionnaires from this point onward marked the fact that the government could not marshal all the cash it needed for war. To feed its troops during the first half of the seventeenth century, the government adopted and refined several methods that grew out of earlier precedent. Troops in garrison, in winter quarters, or on the road from place to place, might receive their bread from local requisition, with or without compensation, or from contractors. During the war with Spain, soldiers might simply be expected to purchase their food with their pay, in which case, government commissaires published price ceilings on basic items to protect the soldiers from gouging. 12 In winter quarters, when infantry received bread directly, cavalry were required to buy their own food. 9

10 11

12

Audouin, Histoire de Padministration de la guerre, 2:167; Philippe Contamine, ed., Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 1 (Paris: 1992), 316. Audouin, Histoire de I'administration, 2:51. James B. Wood, "The Royal Army During the Early Wars of Religion, 1559-1576," in Mack P. Holt, ed., Society & Institutions in Early Modern France (Athens, GA: 1991), 20. For example, AG, MR 1881, #19, 20 Mars 1623, at the arrival of the troops, commissaires were to set a price list, and troops were to pay according to these prices for food. However, it is not always true that prices rose around the troops, because troops might seize all the grain and sell it below market price. Bernard Kroener, Les routes et les etapes. Die bersorgung der franzoschichen Armeen in Nordostfrankreich (163S-1661), (Minister: 1980), 135.

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Of much greater interest is the manner in which the monarchy supplied its armies on campaign. Here the primary contrast during the seventeenth century was that between direct state supply through royal agents, on the one hand, and employment of munitionnaires, on the other. The system of direct supply, as inherited by Louis XIII, proved incapable of meeting the needs of an expanded army after 1635, even though Richelieu increased the number of officials involved in the supply administration and appointed himself grand maitre Acs vivres. The commissaires generaux remained, and by an edict of June 1627, Richelieu added four new positions to join the two existing commissairesgeneraux and christened the lot surintendants et commissaires generaux des vivres.,13 The six surintendants were to receive annual wages of 3,000 livres plus 4 percent of all money paid for supplies of foodstuffs in the armies, in addition to other financial privileges. On top of this, they enjoyed entree to the king. In 1631, the crown added conseillers commissaires des vivres in each election, and, about the same time, six tresoriers generaux des vivres to handle the funds used by surintendants des vivres to purchase foodstuffs.14 Andre reads these creations as a step toward direct state supply, and certainly these were offices connected with these functions. Audouin sees them as simply complicating affairs.15 In any case, these were also offices for sale, so efficiency may have played second fiddle to avarice in creating them. The positions of surintendant carried a stiff price tag, valued at 100,000 livres, so a strong possibility exists that the creation of the offices was primarily a way of raising a quick 400,000 livres. In any case, the surintendant and commissaires des vivres slipped in real authority, as the secretary of state for war, intendants, and munitionnaires ran the system under Louis XIV. 16 Whatever the multiplication of officers charged with direct supply, when an expanded army marched off to fight a great war in 1635, the monarchy again turned to munitionnaires. In 1635, the French relied on a single contractor to supply their troops, but when this proved disastrous, the number of contractors was increased, and in 1636, the hard-pressed ministry assigned a greater role for its agents in amassing magazines of grain between campaigns.17 Since the government lacked the funds to supply its troops directly, it had to employ munitionnaires, but since it also often lacked the funds even to pay the installments owed to munitionnaires, these entrepreneurs committed abuses, or at the worst, the system simply broke down. When Le Tellier came to office in 1643, money was scarce, and the troops suffered, but Le 13

14

This ordinance is given in full in Francois Nodot, Le munitionnaire des armees de France (Paris: 1697), 609-12. The 1631 ordinance is in Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 612-15; Audouin, Histoire de Vadministration, 2:167, 221.

15 16

17

Audouin, Histoire de Vadministration, 2:168. See Kroener, Les routes et les e'tapes, 6-56, on the administration of vivres during the long war with Spain. David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1985, 44.

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Tellier was unable to jettison the old system or revamp it fundamentally. Still, Louis Andre praises Le Tellier's administration of vivres as a turn toward modernity. "The period during which he was the only one to direct military administration is in this regard a period of transition between a system of individual enterprise and that of direct service by the state" - by this, he meant the replacement of munitionnaires by intendants and other government agents.18 It is hard to understand why Andre would say this, since it is clear that the personal reign of Louis XIV brought not direct supply but rather the complete triumph of munitionnaires. In fact, what Andre sees as a new use of government agents was evidence of a breakdown in the munitionnaire system, not its reform. For example, in 1648, Falcombel, the contractor responsible for French forces in Lombardy, refused to continue on. Backed into an impossible situation, Le Tellier sent an official from the household of Mazarin to get the job done under the authority of the intendant.19 While Le Tellier's agents built up magazines of foodstuffs, this practice goes back to Sublet de Noyers at least, and probably back to the commissaires des vivres of the sixteenth century. Audouin was closer to the truth than was Andre, because the former read this period as one that ended the system of direct supply furnished through commissaires and surintendants des vivres. In its stead came the dominance of the private munitionnaire, since the monarchy proved unable to shoulder full responsibility for managing supply when finance remained precarious. 20 The period 1643-61 makes more sense as one of expedients and responses than one during which France forged new military institutions. French military administration repeatedly broke down. Vauban said of the latter stages of the war with Spain, "I remember that in the old war, when we were in enemy country, we went three whole weeks sometimes without getting a ration of bread."21 Logistic failure inspired a variety of suggestions. In 1644, Turenne even urged a complete reversion to the practice of paying the men and letting them purchase their own food at controlled prices; at other times, he would have left the captain of each company to feed his own men. 22 In all of this, the commissaires generaux des vivres became not agents of direct supply but inspectors, supervisors of a system of supply by private entrepreneurs. The commissaires and the intendants shared in these duties by regulating the movement of troops and arranging for support of those troops 18 19 20

21

22

Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et Vorganisation de Varme'e monarchique (Paris: 1906), 434. Andre, Le Tellier, 447-48. Audouin, Histoire de I'administration, 2:221-23. Interestingly enough, Nodot also defines the old system as one based on requisitions from the people, saying that this lasted through Louis XIII, but that since then, munitionnaires have become the rule. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 564. Vauban to Louvois, 13 September 1677, AG, A*556 in Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, 4 vols. (Paris: 1862-64), 1:248. Jean Berenger, Turenne (Paris: 1987), 197; Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 585.

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while on the march, and these officials also collected grain and ensured its storage.23 However, when it came to actually supplying troops in the field, their roles were restricted to supervising those who had taken on the task for a fee. Louvois built upon a given set of regulations, many drafted by his father and some that dated back to the 1620s. His powerful personality and the strong support of Louis XIV produced a workable, though far from perfect, system that supplied bread to larger armies than France had ever fielded before and that won him the sobriquet of grand vivier. In fact, Louvois was still learning his craft during the War of Devolution (1667-68), when Colbert cut the deals with munitionnaires and other contractors.24 That war and the Lorraine campaign of 1670 functioned as dry runs. Of the latter, Louvois wrote "The manner in which the king has made his troops live on campaign presently is that which his majesty would like should they have war."25 Louvois deserves particular credit for his use of magazines, although it is not correct to say that he created them in the sense that most historians claim. For Rousset, Louvois ranks as the great innovator here.26 Yet state agents had built up caches of grain during wartime since the sixteenth century. Richelieu and Le Tellier had employed officials, most notably intendants and commissaires des vivres^ to collect foodstuffs for the next campaign. This is why Andre insists that Louvois must share credit with Le Tellier, without recognizing that what Le Tellier did, others had done before. Yet Europe had probably never seen anything like the magazines that supported the French advance of 1672. While deserving praise as an innovator in provisioning, Louvois probably attained his greatest successes by making an existing system work to peak efficiency. In doing so, he may have institutionalized a system that in many ways was quite "unmodern." Audouin, while calling the period 1661-83 "the most memorable in the history of the administration of the armies,5' still condemns Louvois for "abandoning administration to the avarice of entrepreneurs."27 Direct supply by intendants and commissaires was limited to their part in building up magazines and in their care for troops on the march in the etapes system. Audouin argues that the monarchy's poor financial practices and the growing size of armies compelled bad choices. Louvois generally did well at the logistical game because he held some high cards. He enjoyed the full support of Louis XIV, a king who exerted a degree of considerable authority within traditional limits. In addition, Louvois could build upon the administrative foundations laid by his father and Richelieu. Beyond these advantages there are some that, although less commonly noted, deserve attention. He won the title oigrand vivier in a war 23

24 27

12 May 1651 ordinance, by Le Tellier, in Andre, Le Tellier, 451; Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et Louvois (Paris: 1942), 374. 25 26 R o u s s e t , Louvois, 1:118-19. R o u s s e t , Louvois, 1:300. R o u s s e t , Louvois, 1:249. Audouin, Histoire de ^administration, 2:207, 222.

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that followed thirteen years of economic and fiscal recovery. His successors would not be so lucky. Not only was he an able man, but he could call upon some extremely able administrators in his department, like Saint-Pouenges and Chamlay, who played particularly notable roles in provisioning the armies.28 The field armies that this team fed during the Dutch War were still fairly modest in size when compared to those that fought the battles of the last two wars of Louis XIV. And while Louvois did see three years of the Nine Years5 War, he did not have to maintain its 340,00o-man force over the long haul. Lastly, he may have benefited from an especially talented group of munitionnaires who learned their profession under Le Tellier. Such men would not be so readily available to his successors after 1688. Without going so far as to agree with Saint-Simon's charge that Louvois was slipping from royal favor at the time of his death, it is interesting to speculate whether Louvois's reputation would have survived the Nine Year's War. After the death of Louvois, succeeding secretaries of state for war did not feed the army as reliably or speedily. This may be, as so many charge, because they were mediocre men or because the system crafted by Louvois ossified. It can be debated whether or not their abilities declined, but it cannot be denied that the challenges they faced mounted. In the Nine Years' War, army size towered far above what it had been in the previous conflict. This put a much greater burden on the supply system, which survived the challenge, although with many a creak and groan. The French exhausted themselves in that conflict, and with only a few years of peace, they launched into another great war even longer than the last. Supply broke down in the War of the Spanish Succession even before the disastrous winter of 1708-9, but after that catastrophe, the situation went from dim to desperate. How could this be blamed solely on poor administration or corrupt munitionnaires) Although the system of providing rations changed, the amount of food, particularly bread, prescribed for men on campaign remained essentially constant. Military ordinances repeatedly defined the ration in the 1620s and 1630s, and those amounts remained standard for thcjjrand siecle. The Code Michau of 1629 set the daily allowance at 24 ounces of bread, 1 pound of meat, and a pint of wine.29 The 1636 regulation on etapes confirmed the amounts provided in 1629.30 From this point on, the daily ration of 24 ounces of bread remained constant for troops on campaign or on the march. Regulations for winter quarters follow similar patterns; that for 1651 prescribed the same 24 ounces of bread, a mixture of wheat and rye, "cooked and firm [rassi], between brown and white."31 The greatest difference in the 28 29 30 31

Rousset, Louvois, 1:250. Albert Babeau, La vie militaire sous fancien regime, 2 vols (Paris: 1890), 1:127-28. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 14, #94, 26 March 1636. Article 8 of the 4 November 1651 reglement for winter quarters in Andre, Le Tellier, 672. "Rassi" today means "stale," the point then was that the bread had to be firm enough to be carried in pack or caisson, so it had to be long enough out of the oven to be reasonably solid.

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regulations concerning bread rations contrasted supply for infantry to that for cavalry. Throughout the century, infantrymen received bread both on campaign and in winter quarters, while cavalrymen did not receive bread directly but had to purchase it out of their pay.32 Yet by the last two great wars of Louis XIV, troopers also received bread on campaign in addition to their pay.33 The actual weight of loaves varied, so a ration might require two loaves while at times a single loaf was so large that it amounted to two rations.34 A change in weights causes some conftision among historians. Earlier regulations speak of a pound of only 12 ounces, whereas by the end of the century, the ordinances dealt in a 16-ounce pound. Therefore a 2-pound ration in 1629 contained the same number of ounces as a 1.5-pound ration by 1700. The soldier washed down his bread with wine or other alcoholic beverages. The 1629 code set the drink ration at a pint of wine, and while this varied, reaching as much as three pints of wine, it tended to hover at the pint mark. In most regulations, a pot of beer or cider could replace the pint of wine if it was not the local drink.35 Neither did the system of vivres alter much late in the reign of Louis XIV. By 1691, it was securely in place, for good or ill. Munitionnaires financed and supplied the bread that fueled Louis's armies, but the funds to pay them fell short, and perhaps the men themselves were not as good at their demanding tasks. Having mentioned munitionnaires tangentially so many times, it is best now to examine their work directly. Munitionnaires As mentioned earlier, the use of entrepreneurs in supply predated the grand sikle. Under Richelieu, negotiations for these contracts involved contentious consultations between the munitionnaire, the surintendant desfinances,and the secretary of state for war.36 In the late 1640s, when Le Tellier served as secretary of state, the conseil du roi publicly posted the basic terms of the contract that it wished to conclude and then entertained offers. Such details included the need to provide a specific number of bread rations at a set price per ration and the transport to carry the bread to the front. The munitionnaire chosen would be paid in advance month by month.37 Different munitionnaires 32

33

34

35

Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 85-86; Andre chapter on vivres, Andre, Le Tellier, 415-68. See the charts of campaign pay during the War of the Spanish Succession in Jean Roland de Mallet, Compts Rendus de I administration desfinancesdu royaume de France. (London: 1789), 169-70. V i c t o r B e l h o m m e , Uarme'e franpaise en 1690 (Paris: 1895), 150; L o u i s d e G a y a , Le nouvel art de la guerre et la maniere dont on la fait aujourd'huy en France (Paris: 1692), 4 6 .

Babeau, La vie militaire, 1: 127-28; see, for example, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 14, #94, 26 March 1636. 36 p a r r o t t - 5 " J h e Administration o f t h e French A r m y , " 86. 37 A n d r e , Le Tellier, 4 4 1 . I n addition, see t h e 1646 reglement for t h e munitionnaire general, p. 445n.

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contracted for different tasks; Kroener, in his historical study of supply, argued that there were three different kinds of munitionnaires during the period 1635-61 - those that supplied a particular field army wherever it might be, those that supplied all troops in a particular area, and those that supplied only garrisons.38 In his long treatise on the profession of the munitionnaire ^ Nodot, a contractor himself at the end of the 1600s, provides the text of a traite concluded with Alexandre de TEspine to supply bread to troops in Savoy, Piedmont, Catalonia, and Roussillon during the six months of the campaign season, 1 May to 31 October 1694.39 It set the rations at 10,000 for Savoy, 80,000 for Piedmont, and 26,000 for Catalonia and Roussillon. The bread was to be made of a fifty-fifty mixture of wheat and rye, and to weigh 28 ounces as dough and 24 ounces in the final cooked form. It also stipulated where he was to establish his magazines of grain and how many sacks each should contain. He was to arrange for milling and baking, as well as providing 2,800 mules with pack frames or horses with caissons in Piedmont and Savoy, and 400 in Rousillon and Catalonia. The government agreed to supply the munitionnaire with 70,000 200-pound sacks of wheat at Marseilles at 18 livres per sack. This cache was apparently one that the government had built up in its own magazines. The traite promised to provide l'Espine with "all the escorts necessary for the security5' of his grain, bread, and equipment by land or waterways. If the enemy should take or destroy his gear or animals, the government agreed to pay for his losses at a set rate - 150 livres for mules and horses, 50 livres for wagons. It also allowed for ransom to be paid for captured teamsters and muleteers. For these services, the munitionnaire was to receive 67 deniers a ration for troops in Savoy and Piedmont but only 36 deniers for Catalonia and Rousillon. Espines would get a total of 7,470,977 livres to be paid one sixth in each of the months of February, March, and April, with the remaining to be paid in equal portions during the six months of the campaign. Contracts like that with de FEspine covered only a single campaign season, and with the end of that season in November, the munitionnaire dismantled the supply apparatus. If the hired captains who commanded the wagons and teamsters were subcontractors with their own staff, animals, and equipment, the munitionnaire dismissed them. If the munitionnaire owned the wagons and horses, he stored the wagons in the care of craftsmen, who made necessary repairs, as the horses plodded off to winter away from the front. His employees dispersed, to be reassembled when the munitionnaire won the contract for the next year. The strategic implications of this practice were great, for even if a general wanted to conduct a winter campaign, he lacked the logistic apparatus to take the field. Only in extraordinary situations was this rule broken - the most famous example being Turenne's winter campaign of 1674, which concluded in early January 1675. 38

Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 121.

39

Nodot, Le munitionnaire^ 531-50.

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It is not surprising that the official definition of the campaign season late in the grand siecle matches well with reality. In his study of the War of the Spanish Succession, Jamel Ostwald charts allied campaign seasons in the Spanish Netherlands. 40 Only twice did troops take the field before May, and then they operated in late April. Likewise, only three times did actual campaigning last into November, and it continued through November but once. Munitionnaires might also contract to supply bread for garrison troops during the year. In general, the state offered less per ration for garrison troops than for units in the field. Louvois habitually offered 2 sous per ration to munitionnaires for field units and 10 deniers less per ration for garrison troops. 41 A munitionnaire took on a complicated, expensive, and risky business. The 600-odd pages of Nodot's handbook suggest the great variety of talent, knowledge, and resources required. To perform these duties, a munitionnaire had not only to amass grain in magazines; he also had to buy sacks for grain, hire animals, construct wagons, produce baking tools, and acquire materials to build field ovens. Moreover, he had to hire workers, drivers, officers, clerks, and supervisors. A general des vivres headed the munitionnaires staff and served as the munitionnaire^ lieutenant if the contractor himself was not with the army, as was often the case. This general, who stood at the right hand of the army intendant, was assisted by two treasurers, two commisgeneraux, and a number of clerks. A capitainegeneral bore responsibility for the wagon train and had his own staff as well. The train was divided into equipages of 100 horses and 25 wagons and drivers, commanded by a captain.42 The captains might be subcontractors who supplied one or more equipages. Thus, a great deal of skilled personnel backed up the munitionnaire. While knowledge about munitionnaires remains incomplete, there seems to be universal agreement that some particularly talented individuals worked with Louvois, most notably Francois Jacquier. Early in the Fronde, Jacquier contracted to supply fortified places in Flanders. He soon received the office of commissaire general des vivres aux campes et aux armies du Roy, combining authority of both contractor and commissaire.43 Nodot portrays him as the greatest munitionnaire and ascribes the successes of 1672-78 in part to the abilities of skilled entrepreneurs like him. 44 A shortage of talent and experience posed a great problem for French supply later in Louis's reign, and the thinning of talent began right at the 40

41 42

43 44

Jamel Ostwald, "The Failure of'Strategy of Annihilation': Battle and Fortresses in the War of the Spanish Succession," M. A. thesis, Ohio State University, 1995, 82-84. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 565. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 20-21, provides a chart of men in the supply train under the rank of captain and their wages. K r o e n e r , Les routes et les e'tapes, 31, o n Jacquier. Rousset, Louvois, 1:250, 338, also mentions great munitionnaires as Jacquier and Berthelot. Berthelot was instrumental in the buildup for 1672; charged with buying grain, he was a fournisseur but practically a government agent.

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top. Nodot reports a shift in the practice of concluding traites. In the Dutch War, the monarchy tended to rely on a single munitionnaire to supply a particular army, but with the Nine Years5 War, the French turned to companies of munitionnaires composed of several individuals who shared the work and the risks.45 It is true that some combinations of munitionnaires functioned very well; Nodot provides the example of one composed of six contractors in 1672 that served as a model of how such a company should apportion duty. 46 Yet he charges that the companies at the end of the century were formed by financiers who did not know the business. While he lived, Louvois did what he could to solve this problem by imposing experienced commis on inexperienced munitionnaires^1 However, even before Louvois's death, there were not enough experienced men to run the business in the field as ge'neraux des vivres and their commis, and incompetent companies of munitionnaires hired mere "adventurers53 to head their operations and were defrauded by their commis. Nodot blames this lack of talent on two primary factors. First, the French lacked a regular training program to prepare new men to work as commis. In the past, some munitionnaires had taught the ropes to a sufficient body of men who learned by doing in wartime. Nodot singles out Jacquier as leaving a particularly rich legacy of trainees. Yet by 1688, few of these remained, and men who knew the job were scarce. Second, the great expansion of armies required more skilled personnel than could be provided by the small pool of truly qualified munitionnaires and top staff. At midcentury, there were many accomplished entrepreneurs and fewer troops, but by the end of the century, it had gone the other way.48 Munitionnaires did not enjoy a high reputation. Richelieu called military suppliers "those colossal cheats.5549 Marshal Villars, no fan of theirs either, commented concerning one: "He merited being hanged one hundred times; [but] I do not know how this can be done.5550 When things got hard for Villars5s troops in 1709, he broke into the warehouses of munitionnaires and seized their grain. They shared some of the hate visited onfinanciersand received blame for the sufferings of poorly fed troops. Audouin refers to the use of munitionnaires under Louis XIV as "this horrible system55 and again blames it on the government's financial straits. 51 Still there were munitionnaires who earned a good reputation, men like Falcombel, Jacquier, and Raffi. And munitionnaires, as men of wealth in state service, might be expected to use their own funds for the army's needs. In 1693, the munitionnaire for the army in Piedmont, whom the treasury still owed 2 million livres for 1692, could not 45 47 49

50 51

Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 251. 46 Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 552. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 566-68. 48 Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 566. Richelieu, Lettres, 3:133 i n M i c h a e l Duffy, ed., The Military Revolution and the State (Exeter: 1980), 38. Villars in A u d o u i n , Histoire de l}administration, 2:389. Audouin, Histoire de ^administration, 2:236-37.

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get adequate funds from the government and had to advance his own money to buy necessary supplies.52 Details of Bread and Equipages In order to carry out the tasks of transporting grain, flour, and bread, the army and government employed two distinct methods. In periods of extreme pressure on supply - for example, during sieges - military and government agents requisitioned animals, carts, and drivers from local government or the population. Such requisitions could involve a large number of pack animals, teams, and wagons for short periods of time.53 The French monarchy exploited this right of requisition throughout the seventeenth century, although Le Tellier tried to discourage it, since it led to incompetence and delays.54 More important than recourse to local cartage was the second basic form of transport - the train belonging to military contractors. Le Tellier generally receives credit for organizing the equipage, but despite the praise he has received, Le Tellier did not create the use of equipages, which seem to have existed before him.55 For example, he did not originate the use of special caissons or coffers to carry the bread, for as early as 1622, du Praissac described in detail coffers that held 1,500 ten-ounce loaves for transport.56 In fact, du Praissac's work leads one to question Louis Andre's enthusiasm for Le Tellier's originality. Du Praissac bears witness to considerable continuity in the seventeenth-century commissary, since he was clearly describing equipages of a pattern similar to that which the French employed even late in thcgrand siecle. In fact, the term equipage des vivres appears in military correspondence in the 1630s.57 It may well be the case, however, that the use of formal equipages was hit or miss before Le Tellier and that too great a reliance was placed upon local requisition of less than competent locals. Otherwise, why would Richelieu have felt the need to write in 1640, "give orders, if you please, to have them fasten down a cover to hold [the bread]; otherwise, all will go wrong, as the least rain would spoil it."58 The later professionals of the supply train would have needed no such counseling. It seems fairest, 52 53

54

55

56 57

58

Belhomme, Uarmee frangaise en 1690, 154. Andre Corvisier, Les Francois et Varme'e sous Louis XIV (Vincennes: 1975), 188; William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge: 1985), 137. Andre, Le Tellier•, 453, argues that Le Tellier relied less on requisition of transport. Andre also gives the terms for requisition when it was used. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 573; Audouin, Histoire de ^administration, 2:208; Andre, Le Tellier, 452-53Praissac, Les discours militaires, 2 n d ed. (Paris: 1622), 154-55. AAE, France, 820 fo. 200 early 1636 in Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 84. August 1640 letter from Richelieu to Castillon in Orest Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII (Oxford: 1963), n o .

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then, to suggest that Le Tellier extended and regularized the best current practices rather than creating a new transportation system from whole cloth. Le Tellier stipulated that bread was to be transported in caissons, about 6 feet by 3 feet long with a locked top, covered in waterproof waxed cloth. Each caisson was to be carried on a four-wheeled charrette drawn by three horses. Sixty charrettes would be sufficient to carry 25,000 rations per day. 59 Andre claims that regular army officers were put in charge of this train, and he adds this detail to support his argument that state agents replaced munitionnaires under Le Tellier. Andre may go astray by misinterpreting the language of the regulation, which apparently uses military ranks for those in charge of the train. As Nodot's treatise makes clear, captains of the equipages were civilians, not serving military officers, and were often private contractors. Van Creveld misconstrues Andre's description of the supply train to mean that it was a rolling reserve, which it was not.60 The train was clearly designed to shuttle between the ovens and the army. The equipage that Nodot describes in great detail at the close of the century varied only in particulars from that which Le Tellier prescribed in regulations. Late seventeenth-century caissons were larger, 8 feet 4 inches by 2 feet 6 inches, with a peaked cover, waterproof and locked.61 Each caisson held 800 rations - a total of 1,200 pounds - and was carried on a charrette, a four-wheeled wagon driven by a single teamster. The method of transport by caissons seemed to be well suited to bread. In an example presented by Nodot, only eight loaves out of 16,000 were ruined in one run from ovens to army.62 The train was divided into equipages of twenty-five caissons and charrettes each, and as four horses now drew a charrette, the equipage contained 100 horses. A captain led each equipage and might own it and subcontract to the munitionnaire. He marked his red-painted caissons with the first initial of his name and numbered them from 1 to 25. The equipage for supply was organized in very much the same way as the horses and teamsters of the artillery train, also divided into units of 100 horses with a teamster for every four horses, commanded by a captain - a civilian operation again provided by contract.63 In areas where wagons were impractical, equipages employed mules or donkeys bearing pack frames, and pack animals were divided into "brigades55 of 100 or 50 with a captain in charge. A mule could carry 190 rations, according to Nodot and other contemporary sources.64 This would mean it required about the same number of draft/pack animals to carry a given number of rations. The supply trains for French field armies varied. In 1690, the train 59 60

Andre, Le Tellier, 452-53. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge: 1977), 19.

61 63 64

Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 12-13. 62 Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 359. B e l h o m m e , Uarmee franpaise en 1690, 124, 129. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 452; AN, G7iO93, 5 May 1708.

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for the Army of Germany numbered 1,600 horses, and that for the Army of Flanders included 1,200 horses; however, Moselle and Rousillon only had 600 horses each, while Piedmont counted 500 and Rousillon a mere 100, a single equipage.,65 Supply involved a great deal of shuttling back and forth from magazines to ovens tofieldarmies. While this was not the "five-march" system, which historian Perjes argues did not exist during the seventeenth century and van Creveld believes never existed at all, it did involve the continual movement of foodstuffs in convoy.66 According to Nodot, the munitionnaire provided enough equipages to carry four times the daily ration. Du Praissac advocated only three times as many wagons as would be required to carry a single day's ration in 1622, and Gaya picked up that notion and repeated it much later, but Nodot's advice seems to have been the rule.67 This fit the need for transport in accord with the life span of bread and economized on convoy escorts. The French, as well as other contemporary armies, usually distributed bread to the troops once every four days.68 Because a full ration for the army took two or more days to bake, and perhaps another day or two to transport, a four-day's ration would push the life span of baked bread about eight days in good weather, but less when it was hot and damp. This supply train or park occupied its own part of an army's camp: behind the main body of troops, along with the headquarters and the artillery park.69 In order to keep the teamsters close by their horses and equipment, Nodot even recommended that the pare des vivres have its own chaplain, so that the men would not leave for mass.70 Even if the ovens were built in the army encampment, the equipages still had to cart flour in from the magazines, although this was an easier task than carting bread. The standard 200-pound bag of flour produced 180 bread rations of twenty-four ounces each, or 270 pounds of bread - a baking ratio of y.4-.71 Transport of flour to the ovens could also be handled by local carters, as when flour and wood was brought to the ovens every two weeks circa 1690. Then the teamsters would be fed and the team owners paid for this temporary duty.72 The use of local teams freed the train to haul bread from the ovens to the troops. In the field, French armies ate bread prepared in brick field ovens established close to the army, within its encampment if possible. Such ovens were constructed with bricks found on site over a framework of curved iron rods, 65 66

67 68

69 71

B e l h o m m e , Uarmee franpaise en 1690, 152. G. Perjes, "Army Provisioning, Logistics and Strategy in the Second Half of the 17th Cent u r y , " Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 16, n r . 1-2 (1970), 27-29. Praissac, Les discours militaires, 155; Gaya, Le nouvel art de la guerre, 4 6 - 4 7 . Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 28-29. Montecuccoli specified that "the troops get bread every four days." Gaya, Le nouvel art de la guerre, 56-58. 70 Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 198-99. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 4. 72 Belhomme, Uarme'efran$aiseen 1690, 151.

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or eintres, which were part of the munitionnaire^ equipment. 73 This use of cintres greatly speeded construction, so a bank of ovens could be built and ready to fire in two and a half days.74 Munitionnaires maintained a crew of masons to build ovens as the army moved. An army requiring 50,000 rations per day would need 20 ovens, each baking 500 rations a day.75 Early in the Dutch War, the French used portable iron ovens that could be set up in six hours, but these did not survive long. 76 Nodot explains that portable ovens were rejected because "they were very difficult to transport and it was not easy to fit them together again [raeommoder] when the plates were disjointed or bent."77 Plates cooled by pouring cold water on them must have often split or warped. Had the pace of warfare been significantly faster, the cumbrous, and expensive, iron ovens might have been worth the trouble, but such was not the case for the French. Distribution

of Bread Rations

The distribution of bread rations took place every four days in good weather and every two days during the hottest days of summer, because heat shortened the shelf life of bread.78 The oldest bread was to be handed out first, for obvious reasons. Nodot cautions that if this bread ccis a little suspect, give it to the cavalry, because... it is less careful [about its rations] than the infantry."79 He comments more than once about this curious lack of concern among cavalry and advises that if rations are not sufficient, short the cavalry not the infantry, because the cavalry "waits [for food] more easily, always finding [a way] to subsist."80 This can only be a reference to the mounted man's greater mobility and higher pay. Ideally, distributions were to occur in the morning, with infantry showing up at break of day, cavalry at about 8 A.M. and dragoons about 10 A.M. Each regiment would be conducted to the pare des vivres by its major, aide-major, and marechal de logis, who would present their review reports and agree to a set number of rations. The eommisgeneral de pare would supervise for the entrepreneur. Interestingly enough, Nodot recommended that the eommis set his tent up in the center of the wagon park and keep his tent supplied with refreshments for the officers.81 The soldiers would line up and collect their rations in cloth sacks while the entrepreneurs' men counted out the rations in a loud voice to avoid confusion and prevent any fraud by the troops. 73 74 76 78 79 81

On oven construction, see Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 223, 304-14. Nodot, Le rnunitionnaire, 168. 75 Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 139. Wolf, Louis XIV, 222-23. 77 Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 223-24. On the details of bread distribution, see Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 157-60, 355-76. Nodot, Le rnunitionnaire, 364. 80 Nodot, Le niunitionnaire, 375. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 356.

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While common soldiers collected only one ration each, their commissioned and noncommissioned officers were entitled to multiples. By a regulation of 1656, the commanding general of an army would receive 100 rations and lieutenant-generals and intendants 50.82 A series of regulations set the rations for regimental officers. During the personal reign of Louis XTV, officers received multiples of the single ration allowed an infantryman and, eventually, a trooper: Colonels drew 12 to 18 rations, captains 6, lieutenants 4, ensigns and cornets 3, and sergeants and marechaux de hgis 2.83 These extra rations were required by the retinues of officers' valets, who could form as much as 10 or 20 percent of men associated with a regiment, although they could not be counted as soldiers.84 Rations that a unit was entitled to, but chose not to collect, would be bought back at a set rate by the munitionnaire. Officers, for example, might choose to buy good white bread for their tables rather than eat the coarser pain Ae munition. The buy-backs, or "rachats," turned out to be an important part of the munitionnaire^s accounts, since they were bought back at considerably less than they cost the munitionnaire, and he cleared the difference.85

Meat Military authorities were well aware that men enduring the hard conditions of life in the ranks could not survive by bread alone. As Vauban wrote from the camp at Charleroi in 1693: "They cannot work two hours without resting . . . . In a word, one can do almost nothing since they are weakened by hunger, for they are reduced to pain de munition alone.5586 For soldiers to bear up to fatigue, they had to have meat in their diets. Army meat rations varied far more according to regulation than did bread rations: Provisions varied over time and according to whether troops were on the march in the etapes system, in garrison or winter quarters, or on campaign. The etapes system was most generous, perhaps out of consideration for troops who endured those long marches while traveling from place to place. In addition, troopers got more than infantrymen on etapes, even at a time when mounted troops enjoyed no meat allowance at all when on campaign. The etapes regulations of 1636 prescribed one pound of meat for 82 83

84

85 86

Andre, Le Tellier, 430-31. For example, see the regkment for etapes of 12 November 1665, article six, and Mallet, Compts rendus^ 163-64. See Chapter 7 concerning valets. Quincy complained of "an infection of domestics mounted on the horses of their masters which form a quarter of the company." AG, A*595, 1 January 1678, Quincy to Louvois, in Rousset, Louvois, 2:480. Concerning rachats^ see Nodot, Le rnunitionnaire, 376-85. Vauban to Le Pelletier, 3 November 1693, in Albert Rochas d'Aiglun, Vauban, sa famille et ses e'crits, 2 vols. (Paris: 1910), 2:404.

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infantry per day but allowed cavalry two pounds, an amount repeated in a directive of 1693.87 For most of thcjjrand siecle, the infantry received a daily meat ration on campaign, but cavalry did not. That basic ration stood at one half pound a day, except for Friday, in deference to Catholic practice. This meat was not free, and circa 1690, the state deducted its value from the soldiers' pay at the rate of 1 sol, 5 deniers the ration.88 Before the Nine Years' War, meat was not a necessary part of the rations supplied to cavalry in thefield.An interesting directive from Louvois during the brief war of 1683-84 stated that "The King does not want to give meat to the cavalry because a trooper who has 3 sols per day and bread is capable of buying it for himself, and one has only to make sure that the officer gives him these three sols exactly."89 But if a trooper had no money, he had no meat. In 1677, an order at the camp of Ninoue announced that while the infantry had meat, the cavalry had no money; therefore, "many men will have need of food."90 During the last two great wars of Louis XIV, meat was added to the allotment for mounted troops, who in the War of the Spanish Succession, were supposed to receive 24 ounces of bread and one half pound of fresh meat daily in addition to their campaign pay.91 In any case, meat was not normally provided in garrison and winter quarters, when a soldier provided his own out of his pay. The most common contract supplier of meat was the munitionnaire who kept the army in bread, but other entrepreneurs provided meat on the hoof. A contract of 1672 was to provide men with two pounds of meat every three to four days, or roughly the half pound a day regulation ration.92 In January 1689, the intendant La Goupilliere contracted with a Frankfort supplier to 87

88

89 90 91

92

Babeau, La vie militaire^ 1:125,127,128,12811. See, as well, Nord, C 2230, November 1678; and Letter of 14 August 1681 in Jacques Hardre, ed. Letters ofLouvois, University ofNorth Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures^ no. 10 (Chapel Hill: 1949), 167-68. Code Michau, 1629, article 272, in Francois Andre Isambert et al., eds. Recueilgeneral des anciennes loisfranpaises,depuis Van 4.20, jusqu'a la Revolution de 1789, vol. 16 (Paris: 1829), 293; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 32, #8. While Babeau doubted that this meat ration was ever really supplied, etapes tickets from Dijon state that rations were supplied exactly as ordered, including the pound of meat. Dijon, H 218 bis. During the early period, some cavalrymen were allowed three pounds, half in beef and half in mutton. Babeau, La vie militaire, i:i27n. Perhaps so much was there because this was a two-ration subsidy, as some cavalrymen were allowed. Three pounds per day is too much for a single person. J o s e p h Servan, Recherches sur la force de Varmee franpaise, depuis Henri IV jusqu'a lafinde 1806 (Paris: 1806), "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805"; Belhomme, Uarmee francaise en 1690, 153; Babeau, La vie rnilitaire, 1:125. A G , A X 734, #59, letter from Louvois t o C r e q u i , 16 April 1684 in H a r d r e , Lettres^ 4 2 0 . A G , A L 539, # 2 , 16 J u n e 1677, order o f C a m p d e N i n o u e . See A G , A*688, #98, letter from Louvois t o Peletier, 2 4 A u g u s t 1683 in H a r d r e , Lettres, 253; A G , A 1 734, #59, letter from Louvois t o Crequi, 16 April 1684 in H a r d r e , Lettres, 4 2 0 ; and t h e charts o f campaign p a y in Mallet, Compts rendus, 169-70. A G , A ! 2 9 4 , #29, 6 A u g . 1672.

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purchase 6,650 sheep for the French army, and later that year, marshal Duras from Strasbourg ordered an entrepreneur to supply meat to his men. 93 The next year Louvois again contracted with entrepreneurs for meat, though this would not be for high-ranked officers because if they were to receive army meat, they would take all the best for themselves. 94 Cattle might cross significant distances to reach troops. In 1709, the government paid La Bourdonnaye to ship 1,500 head from Bordeaux to French forces in Spain.95 But when money was tight, meat was probably the first item cut out of the soldier's diet, as Villars revealed in his description of hard times in the War of the Spanish Succession, when the king, "for lack of money, ceased to give the troops meat that he was accustomed to giving them." 96 But entrepreneurs were not the only source of meat for the army. Armies may have found it difficult to depend on raids and requisitions for bread, but livestock remained a prime target for war parties. Its mobility saved the raiders even from having to secure transport; meat animals simply plodded along after the army and were butchered on the spot when needed. Interestingly enough, when parties did bring in meat on the hoof, it seems to have been awarded by priority to cavalry units. 97 This ability to secure its own meat in the field through the activity of war parties may further explain why cavalry did not receive a regular meat ration until relatively late.

Magazines and Convoys Magazines were fundamental to keeping the large armies of the grand siecle in the field. The evolution of magazines did not begin with either Louvois or his father. As previously stated, stores of grain and forage had been amassed in the sixteenth century for winter quarters or even to support troops in the field. Potter's study of Picardy reveals that all major Picard towns boasted magazines in the first half of the sixteenth century and that munitionnaires contracted to keep them stocked.98 Richelieu, too, set up magazines for the next campaign.99 The fact that grain was collected in lieu of taxes or bought in large quantity for military use implies that it was stored in central sites, in, for want of a better word, de facto magazines. This evidence contradicts any claim, such as Andre seems to make, that Le Tellier originated the process of collection and storage. Without question, in the 1640s, Le Tellier went about the process of setting up magazines with great vigor, in part as a response to the failings of munitionnaires.100 Constant war from 1635 to 1659 meant that the repeated creation of grain stores resembled the more permanent 93

94 97 98 100

AG, A1874 in Ronald Thomas Ferguson, "Blood and Fire: Contribution Policy of the French Armies in Germany (1668-1715)," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1970, 105; AG, A1875, 29 April 1689. R o u s s e t , Louvois, 4:303. 95 A N , G 7 i O 9 4 , 11 J u n e 1709. 96 Villars, Memories, 3:49. N o r d , C 2333, 17 April 1674; A G , A*538, # 4 4 6 , 5 J u n e 1677; A G , A ^ 3 9 , #37, 18 J u n e 1677. Potter, 196-98. 99 Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army," 44. For Le Tellier's work with magazines, see Andre, Le Tellier, 455-68.

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magazines of Louvois. With the return of peace, most of the magazines created by Le Tellier vanished with the return of peace, but he also created some permanent stores in key fortresses, such as Dunkirk, Arras, Brisach, and Pinerolo.101 Already with Le Tellier, the intendants bore the responsibility of making sure that the magazines were stocked. Louvois may not have founded the first great magazines, a feat that Rousset credits him with, but he certainly made a significant contribution. 102 If Le Tellier sketched the blueprint of a system of magazines, Louvois built it into the kind of structure that could support the weight of the massive armies that fought later.103 The contemporary general Puysegur ascribed the new dependence on magazines under Louis XIV to the increased size of armies, whose great proportions tied them to such storehouses.104 Rousset credits Louvois with setting a standard that fortresses should at all times house enough grain for six-month's rations.105 Beyond this, he also built up great general magazines on the frontier to feed field armies. The ministry charged intendants with stocking permanent magazines in fortresses and commissaires with inspecting them. 106 The Dutch War saw the triumph of Louvois's magazine system. At the outset of the 1672 advance, he had accumulated enough grain for 200,000 rations a day for a full six months in seven magazines.107 Such an impressive accumulation of grain was not a one-time affair. In preparation for the 1675 campaign, Louvois built up grain magazines. He ordered a total of 40,000 septiers of grain to be collected and stored at Maestricht and Liege, enough for seventy-five days at the stipulated rate of 80,000 rations per day.108 Sieges called for particularly prodigious accumulations of supplies. In preparation for the siege of Dunkirk, the French, with Jacquier in charge, planned to collect biscuits and enough flour to produce 400,000 rations of bread in 1657.109 Later conflicts called for even greater efforts. For the siege of Mons in 1693, the attacking French army required a total of 360,000 rations per day from Namur, Philippeville, Dinant, and Givet, with the ovens established at Judoigne.110 It was often the duty of munitionnaires to fill up the magazines intended to support wartime campaigns; they generally went to work in the spring to 101 102 103

104 106 107

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110

Andre, Le Tellier, 468. Rousset, Louvois, 1:248-50, credits Louvois with the creation of magazines. Magazines founded by Le Tellier or Louvois followed the same rules as laid down through the commissairesgeneraux des vivres, drafted under Le Tellier. Andre, Le Tellier et Louvois, 375. Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 38. 105 Rousset, Louvois, 1:249. A n d r e , Le Tellier et Louvois, 375. Louis XIV, Oeuvres de Louis XIV, Philippe Grimoard and Grouvelle, eds., 6 vols. (Paris: 1806), 3:117. AG, AV33, 5 April 1675, Louvois to Morceau. I thank my student George Satterneld for putting me on to this document. Jules Mazarin, Lettres du cardinal Mazarin, eds. P. Cheruel and G. d'Avenel, vols. 6-9 (Paris: 1890-1906), 8:171. Mazarin to Turenne, 24 September 1657. Belhomme, Uarme'e francaise en 1690, 192-93.

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accomplish this task.111 Completely integrated with the system of magazines, munitionnaires even built up permanent stores in fortresses.112 Stores collected by government agents or long-term purchases could also be turned over to munitionnaires charged with supporting a particular campaign, on condition that they purchase the grain from the government or later on replace it with new stores.113 In this manner, existing magazines sped the work of the munitionnaires. Intentionally left in the dark as to the exact details of the campaign, munitionnaires had little option but to spread their stocks in a series of magazines. Only at the last moment were they told the army's assembly point and line of advance.114 The desire to disguise plans for the next campaign determined not only the need to multiply magazines along an entire front but also the sites chosen for them. 115 Of course, uncertainty concerning the enemy's plans also encouraged the creation of multiple magazines. Villars wrote that an army needed to scatter about in magazines half again as much flour as it would actually consume on campaign, "because, not knowing where the enemy will carry the war it is necessary to be able to move in a number of different directions." 116 As will be seen, the mountains of forage held in magazines had nearly as great an impact on campaigns as the grain there. Magazines held more than grain and fodder. As early as 1667, Louis boasted that his magazines contained "all the things that one could imagine for war." 117 Secure fortress magazines provided the best places to store the weapons of war. At the close of the Nine Years' War, Metz contained 500 artillery pieces and small arms for 20,000 men. 118 The amount and variety of stores amassed for a major siege was staggering. For the attack on Mons, the French stocked 220,000 red-skinned Dutch cheeses in the citadel of Tournai. 119 This says nothing of the gabions, facines, shells, cannonballs, grenades, and so on that a siege required.120 To the extent that armies supplied themselves from stores diligently collected in the rear by intendants and munitionnaires, convoys became the essential links from magazines, to ovens, to field armies. Not surprisingly, instructions on how to form, move, and protect convoys fill treatises on 111 112 113

114 115

116 117 119

120

Nodot, Le munitionnaire, comments on magazines repeatedly, e.g., 122. Rousset, Louvois, 1:249. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 570. See, for example, the contract with Espines, 1694, in Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 531-50. Nodot, Le tnunitionnaire, 122. Louis sited his magazines in Picardie to threaten both England and Spain in order to confuse potential enemies in 1666. Louis, Oeuvres, 2:161-62. Letter of 1 June 1709 to Louis XIV in Villars, Menwires, 3:46. Louis, Menwires, 2:156. 118 Corvisier, Les Franpais et Varvnee, 218-19. Christopher Duffy, The Fortress in the Age ofVauban and Frederick the Great, 1660-1789, Siege Warfare, vol. 2 (London: 1985), 29. See, for example, AG, A*2O9, #81, on amounts needed for siege of Luxembourg, 10 July 1667.

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warfare written during the grand siecle.121 Nodot lays out careful guidelines for escorts in plain and mountain terrain, prescribing cavalry for thefirstand infantry for the latter and declaring that the escort be placed in thirds at the front, middle, and rear of the convoy. Orders for and reports of convoys appear constantly in the correspondence at the Archives de guerre.122 Concern to protect convoys reached strategic, or at least operational, proportions, as when Vauban urged that the French take Charleroi, in part because the need to supply escorts to protect convoys from raiding parties based on Charleroi was taking too many troops.123 Not only land routes but rivers proved immensely important for convoys, and thus river lines had to be protected.124 Rivers proved particularly important supply lines when large quantities of food, siege supplies, and heavy artillery could be best moved by water. In order to ensure supplies on river routes, the army maintained companies of galiots^ small armed gunboats, created in the 1670s, and companies of boatmen. These latter companies contained not only sailors but soldiers as well for protection against attacks from the banks, such as those mounted by snipers - schnapphahns - along the Rhine.125 In September 1709, Villars's army was bound to the Escaut because Villars depended on river-borne convoys.126 His experience was not unique. FODDER Not only men had to eat; horses too had to be fed. A seventeenth-century field army included a huge number of animals; a force of 60,000 soldiers probably required 20,000 horses for the cavalry and 20,000 for other purposes.127 The mountain of fodder necessary to feed so many beasts far exceeded by weight and bulk the piles of bread amassed in the pare des vivres. The collection of fodder always proved burdensome and sometimes brought danger, but without fodder to fuel it, such a horse-drawn army stopped dead in its tracks. The ration of forage stayed relatively constant. BJglernents defined it in detail mainly for winter quarters or etapes^ when it was composed of dry forage, although on campaign, horses ate green forage and oats. The 1651 121

122

123 124

125 127

For information on convoys, see Nodot, Le munitionnaire^ 60, 77-78; BN, f. fr. 6257, Villars, "Traite de la guerre de campagne." For example, see AG, AX2O9, #38, 18 June 1667; AG, AX433, many letters dating from May 1675; AG, AX539, #285, 3 July 1677; AG, A1539, #324, 7 July 1677; AG, AV03, #113, 20 October 1683, in Hardre, 280; AG, A1i2i5, #35, 17 August 1695, in Ferguson, "Blood and Fire," 145; AG, A:2266, #141, etat 23 April - 4 May 1710. Vauban to Le Pelletier, 29 June 1693, in Rochas d'Aiglun, Vauban, 2:390. For example, in 1667, Crequi left troops along the river to keep the Mozelle open for waterborne convoys. AG, A12O9, #16, 29 May 1667, Crequi to Louvois. Belhomme, Varme'e franpaise en 1690, 67-69. 126 Villars, Mernoires, 3:63. Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 14.

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winter-quarters regulation set a ration of forage at 20 pounds of hay and 10 of straw or 25 of hay; in addition, the horse was to receive 4 pecks of oats. 128 By 1665, this had altered somewhat to 20 pounds of hay and 4 pecks of oats.129 By 1710, this was further differentiated for winter quarters into separate rations for infantry horses and cavalry horses. Infantry mounts received 12 pounds of hay and 8 of straw, or 16 of hay, plus 2 pecks of oats. Cavalry chargers got more: 15 pounds of hay and 5 of straw or 18 pounds of hay, plus 2 pecks of oats.130 Some military authorities suggested stretching forage rations farther by mixing chopped straw with grain when it was late in the season and forage had to be hauled in from some distance. 131 If a trooper or officer had to buy his own forage, the price far exceeded that of his own rations. During the winter of 1688-89, the French figured forage as 20 sols per ration.132 In the War of the Spanish Succession, officers could receive 16 sols per day to buy their own forage.133 Since officers were expected to have valets and extra horses, they received extra forage rations, just as they got extra measures of bread and meat. In 1651, a cavalry mestre de camp was to collect 12 rations of forage, a captain 6, a lieutenant 4, and a cornet 3.134 About the same time, infantry officers enjoyed a less generous scale, with a mestre de camp at 8, a captain at 4, a lieutenant at 3, and an ensign at 2.135 These rates stayed constant for the company-grade officers for the reign of Louis XIV.136 The changes occurred for the field grades. In 1665, cavalry mestres de camp claimed 7 rations, while lieutenant colonels had 6; infantry colonels received 4. During the War of the Spanish Succession, cavalry mestres de camp got 12, while their lieutenant colonels got 10; infantry colonels then claimed 10 rations of forage, and their lieutenant colonels 7. In special circumstances, munitionnaires might be hired to supply forage, as in 1708, when one contracted to provide 200 rations of fodder per day per squadron of cavalry and 100 per battalion of infantry in Rousillon. 137 But in general, and certainly for the large armies that fought in Flanders and along the Rhine, fodder had to be found in the fields. When on campaign, green grass rather than dried hay provided the bulk of the horse's diet. Carting green forage any great distance in the summer would have been prohibitive. Consider a hypothetical supply wagon pulled by four horses and carrying 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136

137

4 November 1651 regulation for winter quarters in Andre, Le Tellier, 672. Articles 3-6, reglement for etapes, 12 November 1665. Rations statement, circa 1710, Mallet, Compts rendus, 165. Diderot et al., Encyclopedic, 15:582. AG, A1829, 26 and 28 December 1688, in Ferguson, "Blood and Fire," 94. A G , A ] 2 2 6 5 , #167. 4 November 1651 regulation for winter quarters in Andre, Le Tellier, 672-73. A n d r e , Le Tellier, 433. Compare articles 4 - 6 , 12 November 1665, reglement on winter quarters and the extensive material on pay, etapes, and rations of the French army ca. 1710 in Mallet, Compts rendus, 165. AN, G 7 io93, vivres de Rousillon, 5 May 1708.

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about 1,200 pounds. Since each of its four horses consumed about 50 pounds of green fodder each day, the team ate 200 pounds of green fodder per day.138 Therefore, during a round trip three days up from a depot and three days back, the horses would require their entire load for themselves and have nothing to deliver. And this says nothing about the tendency of green fodder to rot unless it is properly dried. Dry fodder simplified the problem, since it weighed only about 20 pounds per horse per day; however, the hypothetical team would still consume 40 percent of its load. These calculations do not take into consideration that European horses also required grain, usually oats, as well as roughage. Because some wagon space had to be devoted to grain, in reality, the wagons could carry even less green fodder than hypothesized here. For example, Nodot reported that each of the 100 horses in an equipage of twenty-five wagons consumed six pounds of oats per day, making for a daily total of 600 pounds - or one half a wagonload.139 The problems involved in carting fodder explain why it had to be burnt, rather than removed, to deny it to the enemy when the French withdrew from an area. In pulling back before enemy forces in 1688, Montclar ordered that Peyssonel "consume all the forage he can,.. . and burn the r e s t . . . . I shall take measures to have all the forage from the outskirts of the said city burned.5'140 An army simply had to harvest its own fodder most of the time, and the task of reaping it was great. If a force of 60,000 men had 40,000 horses, such a field force needed to cut and carry 1,000 tons daily. Most commonly, forage was bundled in cloth sheets, bound, and carried on horses' backs, rather than heaped into wagons. 141 If each horse sent on a forage party carried back 200 pounds of forage and forage parties went out every two days, then half the army's horses had to be sent out foraging. This task involved a great many men; clearly, a cavalryman spent far more time wielding a sickle than a sword. Perjes estimates at 4,000 to 10,000 the number of men necessary to mow forage for an army of 60,000 troops. 142 The contemporary Quincy mentioned a single party involving 15,000 men in 1710.143 Such great forces required high-ranking officers in charge. As a rule, the lieutenant general of the day took charge of foraging, including assigning each unit a portion of the acreage that the army's marechal general de logis surveyed in advance.144 138

139 141

142

143 144

Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 16-17, gives the weight of green fodder as 25 kg and dry as 10 kg. Van Creveld, Supplying War, 24, allows a dry ration of 20 pounds and green forage as twice that. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 30. 140 AG, A*829, 20 December 1688, Montclar to Louvois. Nodot, Le munitionnaire, 53-54 and 77-78. Contamine, Histoire militaire, vol. 1, plate 91, after page 466, is a fine illustration of men cutting and bundling forage, ca. 1700. Facts and figures on foraging come from Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 14-19, unless otherwise stated. Quincy, Histoire militaire de Louis le Grand roi de France, 7 vols. (La Haye: 1727), 6:381. Belhomme, Uarmee franfaise en 1690, 185-86.

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Foraging entailed fighting, since large forces were often involved and the enemy did everything it could t o interrupt and interfere. 145 The French, of course, did the same, as w h e n Villars sent 2,000 cavalry against the enemy's forage party near Saint-Pol o n 24 August 1710.146 Such attacks o n enemy forage parties were significant enough t o be reported in the Gazette.147 T h e need t o provide adequate fodder went a long way t o set the rhythms of war in the grand siecle. Lack of grass in the fields compelled armies t o withdraw t o winter quarters every fall, and the growth of spring grass controlled the onset of the campaign season the next year. Administrators kept watch o n the progress of the season and rated h o w well the pastures could support troops, as w h e n Bellefonds reported t o Louvois o n 27 April 1684, " T h e grass is advanced enough t o support 70 squadrons of 160 troopers each." 148 Although, ultimately, horses had t o be fed green forage during the campaign season, an ample stock of dry forage stored in magazines and supplied t o armies early in the spring could allow the French t o take the field weeks before their enemies, especially the Dutch, w h o had t o wait for adequate grass in the fields. 149 As the D u t c h Council of State commented: " T h e French habitually made considerable progress in the Spanish Netherlands in the winter and early spring, before we could subsist in the open field. This advantage is n o t just a question of superior forces, but proceeds from the practice of making magazines o n the borders . . . . O n our side, in that season, . . . w e lack the fodder. 55150 This French advantage was so prized that the advanced spring of 1676 worried Louvois: ccIt will be distressing if those w h o have n o magazines can p u t themselves o n campaign only a little while after me. 55151 Magazines did n o t always free the French from the constraints of weather and time. A hard winter, as in 1668, could still delay the opening of their campaign. 1 5 2 W h e n the French could n o t build u p stores due t o natural conditions, lack of funds, or administrative shortcomings, they, t o o , became strictly subject t o nature's timetable. Villars praised G o d that grass came t w o weeks earlier in 1703 t o allow his army t o move sooner, but in 1710, after the horrendous winter delayed spring, he complained, "Lacking magazines, we can only assemble our armies w h e n the countryside can feed the horses. 55153

145 147 148 150

151 152 153

See Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 18-19. 146 Villars, Memoires, 3:97. For example, see the issues of 24 August 1709, 271; and 12 October 1709, 291. Hardre, Letters, 492. 149 Rousset, Louvois, 1:249. Duffy, The Fortress in the Age ofVauban and Frederick the Great, 11. Stephen Baxter says that the Dutch could not establish magazines because money dribbled in from the various provinces to the center too slowly to make advance preparations. Stephen Baxter, William III and the Defense of European Liberty, 1650-1702 (New York: 1966), 114. AG, A1483, Roi to Louvois, 2 April 1676, in Rousset, Louvois, 2:214. Rousset, Louvois, 1:144. AG, A J i676, #44, in Ferguson, "Blood and Fire," 14-15; Villars, 15 March 1710, Jean Jacques Pelet and Francois Vault, eds. Memoires militaires relatifs a la succession d'Fspagne, 11 vols. (Paris: 1835-62), 10:241.

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Fodder imposed other operational decisions in the field besides the start of spring campaigning. Armies could maintain a camp only as long as the forage lasted. When local sources were exhausted, the army must move, regardless of the operational situation. Louis, for example, instructed Villeroi in 1696 to maintain his camp of Malhelem as long as he could until "the lack of forage obliges you to change it."154 Abundance or lack of forage could also influence decisions concerning siege warfare - which towns to attack or leave unmolested. Although Mazarin wanted to besiege Frieburg in 1644, the area around the fortress was too depleted to support a siege.155 Mons could not be besieged effectively in 1684 owing to lack of forage in the area, and less desirable targets were chosen because they could support an army's horses. 156 Nearly a year before commencing a later siege of Mons in 1691, Louvois ordered intendants to buy secretly 900,000 rations of hay of fifteen pounds each.157 In any lengthy siege, forage would ultimately have to be carted in from a distance, as local supplies gave out. Desire to exploit forage on enemy or neutral territory also compelled armies to campaign across the French border whenever possible.158 So forage magazines, although they did not contain an entire campaign's consumption, could be very important at key moments. Tasks of laying up dry fodder for winter quarters and stocking royal magazines fell primarily to intendants. Le Tellier relied on intendants for this duty as early as the 1640s, and it remained the task of provincial and army intendants }*9 Even in areas that French forces occupied outside their borders, intendants enlisted the aid of local authorities in amassing forage, as Robert did in 1667-68.160 The magazines established under Le Tellier were not permanent, in the sense that they vanished with the peace, whereas his son established permanent magazines.161 Oats could be shipped in from a distance with the same facility as wheat, but because of its bulk and weight, hay and straw were more closely tied to local sources, unless it could be shipped in by water. When building up stores, authorities might house these in local barns or "other covered and closed places" under the watch of guards residing near the stores and 154 155

156

157 158

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AG, AX888, #68, 22 July 1696, Louis to Villeroi. Charles Derek Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643-1648," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, 1995, 155. Louvois to Chamlay, 12 June 1684, in Hardre, Letters, 366-67. See, as well, the similar problem at Luxembourg. Siege instructions to Crequi, 1 April 1684, in Hardre, Letters, 40814; see also page 425. AG, A 1 io43, !3 May 1790, Louvois to Bagnols and Chauvelin in Rousset, Louvois, 4:459. Forage for Villars's army in Alsace cost 10,000 livres a day, so his intendant urged him to move his forces into Germany as soon as possible. Villars to Chamillart, 13 May 1707, AG, A12O27, #73, in Ferguson, "Blood and Fire," 229. Andre, Le Tellier, 455-68. See comments of Baxter concerning army intendants and forage, Douglas Baxter, Servants of the Sword, French Military Intendants of the Army, 1630-1670 (Urbana: 1976), 107, 184-85, 190-91. B a x t e r , Servants of the Sword, 185-86.

161

A n d r e , Le Tellier, 4 6 0 .

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responsible for maintaining them in good condition and distributing the forage rations as required.162 Hay bought to support sieges could be left with the supplier until actually needed, as was the case with forage purchased to support the siege of Mons in 1691.163 ETAPES When moving along the stipulated military roads, military units, from small detachments of recruits headed for their new units to entire regiments marching to the front or to winter quarters, lived by etapes, a system that determined the manner in which they were fed and housed. The term etapes derived from the medieval term for market or fair.164 By the mid-fifteenth century, it had already taken on the meaning of a village in which foodstuffs were gathered to supply troops. 165 Both it and the term routes had become part of the vocabulary of French military ordinances in the mid-sixteenth century.166 In addition, certain basic practices of etapes', such as stipulating that men could stay in each place no more than a single night, except for one day's rest each week, were already prescribed well before 1600. 167 These facts disprove the often repeated assertion that Louis XIII created the French etapes system in his reglement of 14 August 1623. Historian of that system Bernard Kroener argues that the 1623 ordinance institutionalized existing practices, rather than originating them. 168 This ordinance defined four main brisees, meaning in this case paths, across France: from Picardy to Bayonne; from lower Brittany to Marseille; from mid-Languedoc to midNormandy; and from the extremity of Saintonge to the interior of Bresse.169 These main lines split off into brisees supplementaires™ Brissees of Louis XIII became the military routes of Louis XIV. Kroener's study of the routes selected demonstrates that they followed river valleys where possible, which facilitated the transportation of necessary food and fodder.171 Early in the 162

Andre, Le Tellier, 457. 163 Rousset, Louvois, 4:459. G e n e r a l B a r o n B a r d i n , Dictionnaire de Varme'e de terre ou recherches historiques sur Vart et les usages militaires des anciens et modernes, 8 vols. (Paris: 1841), 4:2181. 165 K r o e n e r , Les routes et les etapes, 57. 166 Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 57, 58; Bardin, Dictionnaire, 4:2182; David Potter, War and Government in the French Provinces: Picardy 1470-is6o (Cambridge: 1993), 196. Corvisier credits the 1549 ordinance of Francis I as the first etapes ordinance, which may be true, but it may also just have regularized or extended existing practices. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:34445. Parker says that the French founded etapes for passage to Italy in 1551. Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1S67-16S9: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries Wars (Cambridge: 1972), 88-89. 167 See AG, MR 1881, #6, 12 February 1566 and AG, MR 1881, #14, 9 February 1584 for these stipulations. 169 168 K r O e n e r 5 L e s routes et les etapes, 72-73. D i d e r o t e t al., Encyclopedic, 6:16. 170 Andre, Le Tellier, 417-18. 171 Studying lists and maps, Kroener determined that with the reorganization of 1666, of the 190 etapes villages in northeast France, 73 percent were on rivers, when only 34 percent of all villages in the area were so situated. Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 167. 164

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century, the roads chosen were only 10 to 46 feet wide, but an ordinance of 1669 declared that all major highways be cleared to 72 feet wide.172 Three days before entering a particular province orgeneralite by one of the prescribed routes, a commander on the road was to alert the governor, intendant, or major concerning the size of the approaching contingent and the date when it would arrive. Once first sketched out in 1623 and soon elaborated in succeeding ordinances, the etapes system showed surprising stability until 1718, at least on paper. The 1665 regulation, which defined etapes for the personal reign of Louis XIV, explicitly stated that it upheld regulations dating as far back as 1636.173 The 1629 Code Michau commanded that each province set up a system of military roads - that is, decide upon the actual roads that troops would employ and designate which towns would be organized as stops along the way at intervals of one day's march. Later ordinances repeatedly required that provincial authorities draft and update a series of maps of main and subsidiary military roads. 174 Those leading detachments were ordered to stick to these set routes and stay only at stipulated villages and towns on penalty of being deprived of rank in peacetime or executed in wartime. Their troops would be considered as "vagabonds and thieves."175 Detachments marching along the brisks carried with them exact directions for the paths that they were to follow to their destination and the places at which they were to stop for the night; these directions went by the name routes. Large units might have a commissaire a la conduite with them to supervise the march; small detachments of recruits could be led by a sergeant or a lieutenant. The 1665 ordinance enjoined whoever was in charge ccto follow exactly his march, from day to day, to the places written on his route^ without lodging or staying anyplace else, and for a single night only in each place of etape^ unless it is prescribed by his route to stay. And if the days of marching and those of resting are not marked on his route, he can, after eight days of marching, and not otherwise, rest in a place for one day only.5'176 As the collection of routes preserved at Amiens and other surviving records demonstrate, under Louis XIV, soldiers on the road enjoyed very little, if any, latitude. No later than the 1640s, regulations speak of the creation of magazines for the furnishing of etapes. The ordinance of 30 August 1643 commanded that

172 173

174

175 176

Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 62. The preamble of the reglement of 12 November 1665 states: "The King, being made to represent the regulations and ordinances concerning the providing and distribution of the etapes, police and discipline of soldiers marching to the field . . . of 27 March 1636, 4 October 1641, 26 February 1 6 4 2 , . . . 8 November 1644, and 30 September 1648, His Majesty has ordered and orders conforming to these, that which follows." Andre, Le Tellier, 418-20. See the detailed discussion of etapes maps in Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, particularly vol. 1, 68-72 and 166-70 and the maps in vol. 2. Code Michau, 1629, article 252, in Isambert et al., Bxcueil general des anciennes lots, 16:289. Article 11, 12 November 1665 ordinance.

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such magazines be established at each designated etape town "for wheat and other things that can be preserved there.55177 The 1623 regulation dealt only with the places at which soldiers would be quartered for the night, not with the job of feeding them. Of course, the three-day warning stipulated by the 1623 ordinance gave local officials time to collect foodstuffs and mill flour. By the end of the 1620s, however, royal command would determine the amount and cost of rations for troops marching by etapes. As already discussed concerning food rations, etapes rations were more generous than those provided to troops in garrison or on campaign. Probably this derives from the fact that troops on etapes marched all day long, as opposed to the greater repose of camp life. Cavalry also received rations when on etapes, even during periods when they normally had to purchase their food in garrison or on campaign.178 The Administration of Etapes and Footing the Bill During the seventeenth century, at least four different methods were used to supply and pay for these rations consumed by troops on the military roads. First and most primitive, communities warned of the approach of troops would assemble food that would then be sold directly to the soldiers, who would purchase it from their pay. This was the practice for garrison troops and for detachments on the road in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and it remained an option, intermittently practiced throughout the kingdom until 1665. In some areas, it even continued throughout the reign of Louis XIV, but then it was an exception, not the rule. Another method that did not survive as general practice after the Peace of the Pyrenees required communities to supply the food to soldiers entirely without charge, meaning that these communities were not reimbursed by the monarchy; consequently, etapes became a kind of tax. Two other methods employed before 1659 became the rule after that date - state reimbursement and contracting. In the one case, communities collected and distributed food and were then reimbursed by the province or monarchy. In the other case, an entrepreneur, known as an etapier, contracted with provinces or directly with the monarchy to supply rations at a set rate. The first method, direct purchase by soldiers, had the advantage of requiring very little administration. The existing pay system became a supply system, as troops spent their wages to feed themselves. Some etapes ordinances prescribed payment out of pocket. Whereas the 1629 regulation provided that troops were to receive their food without charge, the ordinance of 1633 stipulated that soldiers were to pay: ccWe order that whatever will be taken 177

178

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #83. See, as well, the reference to magazines for etapes in the 4 October 1641 ordinance. Col. des ord., vol. 16, #28. See as examples, articles 3 and 6,12 November 1665 ordinance on etapes, and the etapes table, circa 1710, in Mallet, Comptes rendus, 166.

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by the said men of war for their food will be paid for at the time according to the price of the last three markets . . . ,"179 And even if the ordinance of 1636 went back to the provision of free food, one issued in 1637 ordered that troops pay for food on the march just as they did in garrison, but this seems to have been for limited purposes.180 In any case, payment out of pocket was less common in the ordinances than some critics supposed.181 No matter how attractive the simplicity of this system, it suffered inherent disadvantages, the most serious of which was an entirely practical one - for troops to buy their food en route, they had to be paid. Given the irregularities of pay, at least before 1659, such a system risked forcing soldiers to pillage. Briquet, who incorrectly thought that payment by soldiers was the rule and not the exception before the personal reign of Louis XIV, voiced another criticism in the eighteenth century. In explaining why Louis XIV decided to supply troops directly with food and not ask them to purchase it from their pay, Briquet argued that once troops had money in their pockets, they would try to keep it there by simply stealing food along their route of march. In fact, when the French dropped direct supply and went back to purchase by soldiers in 1718, similar problems occurred.182 Despite its inherent problems, supply by direct soldier purchase endured in certain areas late into the reign of Louis XIV. A survey of intendants in 1697-98 produced some surprising reports. "In all Hainault," stated the intendant^ "the garrison troops and those in passage live by means of their pay."183 His colleague in Artois wrote: "The etape is not established at all in Artois, the troops who pass through are lodged in barracks and live there by their pay.55184 Since the presence of troops might drive up prices, ordinances such as those of 1628 and 1629 set prices for essential items.185 This repeated the practice used in garrisons where troops regularly purchased their own rations. The most usual standard was to pay the amount established over that last three markets, as was the case in the ordinance of 14 February 1633.186 Even Louis XTV addressed just this problem: "Foodstuffs go up in price naturally everywhere when a surplus of men capable of consuming them arrives."187 It was more common, even before 1665, for ordinances to stipulate that soldiers were to receive their rations gratis. This practice began as early as the great ordinance of 1629, which established as a general rule that food would 179 180 181

182

183 185 187

Ordinance of 14 February 1633, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 14, #25. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 15, #18. Briquet, Code militaire, vol. 2 (Paris: 1741), 323-26, criticized the system for requiring the soldiers to pay, a criticism picked up soon by the article "Etapes" in Diderot et al., Encyclopedic, vol. 6, 16, and perpetuated in Andre, Le Tellier, 418. Briquet, Code militaire, 2:323-26. This article in Briquet was the basis for the article "Etapes" in Diderot's Encyclopedic, vol. 6, 16. 184 C o r v i s i e r , Les Franfais, 259. Corvisier, Les Fmngais, 259. Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 73. 186 SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 14, #25. Louis, Oeuvres, 2:89-90.

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be supplied to the troops "without the soldier having to pay anything for it.55188 While some provisions of this ordinance were altered in 1633, as mentioned earlier, that of 1636 restored the procedures of 1629.189 But if soldiers received food free of charge to them, who actually gave the food to them, and who picked up the bill - the town, the generality the province, or the monarchy? At times it was clearly the locality that did the work and paid the tab. In 1636, the monarchy accounts for the fact that soldiers were not to be charged for food on the road by the fact that "the King having recognized that the payment that he has made for several years to all his troops for their subsistence and places of their route and passage, has been an excessive charge on his finance "190 But more generally, the task of rounding up foodstuffs fell to entrepreneurs, or etapiers, who performed much like munitionnaires, or in the absence of etapiers^ the task went to local officials.191 Under Louis XIII, communities were to put aside an amount of money sufficient to buy the necessary food for troops passing through. 192 The more usual writ of the regulations provided for reimbursement to localities that provided food to troops in passage.193 Such considerable variety as to the source and method of payment typified by the regulations promulgated during the war with Spain that they leave an impression of expediency rather than rational system. One promises repayment "by means of a great fund of money that His Majesty is now distributing in each province," while another pledges that if localities supply and pay for the food, they will be compensated by deducting "a similar sum . . . from the taille and other impositions." 194 Andre credits Le Tellier with a major shift in the regulation of 1643 and its successor; " H e proposed . . . to put the provision of etapes at the charge 188

189 190 191

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194

Code Michau, 1629, article 272, in Isambert et al., Rxcueil general des anciennes bis, 16:293. See also the ordinance of 9 October 1629 in Jules Caillet, De t'administration en France sous le ministere du Cardinal de Richelieu (Paris: 1857), 370-71. Caillet, De Vadminstration en France, 371. Ordinance of 26 March 1636, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 14, #94. Regulations already refer to entrepreneurs supplying etapes as etapiers as early as 25 February 1642, and regularly thereafter. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #44. This contradicts Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 121, for whom the term etapier "is first found entering the official military terminology, however, towards the end of the century." Henri Thomas, Droit romain des requisitions militaires et du logement des gens de guerre chez les Remains, sous la republique et sous f empire. Droitfranpaisdes requisitions militaires et du logement des gens de guerre en France, depuis le Ve siecle jusqu'en 1789 (Paris: 1884), 177-78. AG, A 1 62, ordinance of 26 March 1640. This refers back to 1636 for most provisions. So will the ordinance of 15 October 1640, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 15, #112. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #28, 4 October 1641; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., tome 16, #79. For other examples of repayment arrangements, see AG, AX62, #101, ordinance of 26 March 1640; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #28; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #130; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #127; poster of 9 September 1652, Cotes d'Or, C 3673; Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 109; and provisions of the 26 March 1636 ordinance, as repeated in 26 March 1640, in Patrick Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe en France, 1635-1659," doctorat de troisieme cycle, dissertation, Universite de Paris IV, 1978. 21.

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of the state and no longer at the charge of the inhabitants." 195 For Andre, Le Tellier simplified the system and shifted power away from local authorities and placed it in the hands of the intendants.196 But at best, this is true only to a degree; because earlier regulations already stressed xhzgeneralite, the role of the intendant could be seen as a product of preexisting reliance on this administrative district and thus predates Le Tellier. The ordinance of 1641, two years before Le Tellier came to office, already empowered the intendant, not local officials, to prepare the accounts of the etapes. And since localities ran the etapes if an etapier could not be found, Le Tellier did not really eliminate local officials, even into the 1650s.197 Hence, again we see here more evolution than revolution under Le Tellier; regulations of 1623 and 1629 brought more important shifts than did Le Tellier. Once more, Andre tends to underestimate French military/administrative structures before Le Tellier and overestimate the immediate effect that Le Tellier had on the actual day-to-day operation of affairs, at least before 1659. The basic statement of etapes for the personal reign of Louis XIV was the reglement of 12 November 1665, itself the culmination of nearly forty years of such ordinances. Its preamble specifically appeals to etapes ordinances of 1636, 1641, 1642, 1644, and 1648. This reglement required that detachments were, of course, to follow their routes exactly and give the standard three-day's notice to authorities that the soldiers would be coming. The list of the officials to be informed included governors, intendants, tresoriers of the etapes, and municipal leaders. Each time the unit crossed into zgeneralite, it had to stand for review early in the morning, so that heads could be counted to tally with the route. Upon arrival in a town, the unit would march, flags waving and drums beating, to a public space and form into line. There the bans would be read to the men, informing them of the penalties for infractions against regulations. After the men were counted, local officials would give officers slips of paper identifying which houses would quarter troops and how many men each would take. Officers would then assign particular quarters to particular men. Meanwhile the etapier, or his representative, or, failing these, local officials, would distribute the food to the hosts, who would then take it to their homes. 198 At their quarters, men would receive the utensile, defined as bed, pot, bowl, glass, and a place by the fire and the candle. Before leaving the next day, the troops assembled, and their hosts could lodge any complaints that they might have with the proper authorities. The 1665 ordinance assumes etapiers and speaks of a fond des etapes, under 195 197

198

Andre, Le Tellier, 418. 196 Andre, Le Tellier, 418-19. The 2 October 1651 ordinance again urged officials to find an entrepreneur to furnish etapes either for entire geneneralites or the smaller elections, but if none could be found, private people were to supply etapes and be reimbursed through deductions from tattle. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #127. A later ordinance of 27 March 1668 stated that the etapiers were to give the food to the sergeant majors of infantry regiments or to company NCOs. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 22, #14.

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the care of the Treasurers of France "who will have the care of furnishing the etapes"199 At least by 1670, etapes showed up as a major budget item on royal financial etats. Beginning at only 613,238 livres in the peaceful year of 1670, it peaked during the Dutch War at 6,165,782 livres in 1675 and reached 10,317,891 in 1695 during the Nine Years' War. An ordinance of 1718 stated that the amount spent on etapes during the War of the Spanish Succession climbed to 15 million livres in 1713.200 But this did not mean that the state paid completely for etapes with tax levies, because expenses seem always to have been based on the generalite.201 Localities still bore heavy financial responsibilities under Louis XIV. Fodder was a case in point. The monarchy benefited from a set price for fodder in some provinces, and the province itself had to make up the difference between what the monarchy paid and what it really cost. As the intendant reported, around Lyon, "The king pays 5 sols for [a ration of] forage and the province gives 13."202 Again, while officials may have preferred to deal with an etapier, this was not always possible. A printed order of 1676 in Burgundy complained that an etapier general could not be found, so the intendant passed the duties on to the provincial estates and the communities.203 Apparently, this was a recurrent phenomenon in that province, because another printed poster of 1703 declared a reimbursement to communities who provided etapes.204 Therefore, the old practice of dealing directly with towns in the etapes system survived right through the reign of Louis XIV, at least when entrepreneurs could not be found. Contracts and reimbursements were based upon a certain amount of money per ration. In Provence during the Nine Years' War, the rate paid to an etapier general stood at 12 sols for an infantryman and 39 sols for a cavalryman and his horse.205 In Burgundy, it varied during the War of the Spanish Succession from 8 sols per infantryman in 1703 to 10 sols early in 1710 and back to 8 sols by the close of the year.206 Promised payments were often late. Although this would be expected for the chaotic period before 1659, long delays for reimbursement continued after that date.207 Given the relative slowness of seventeenth-century administration, 199

Corvisier, Louvois^ 112, describes as part of the regulation of 12 November 1665 a number of things that are not in it. 200 The amounts listed come from two sources, Mallet, Comptes rendus, 353-55,398-99,130, and the ordinance of 15 April 1718, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 37, #16. 201 See, for example, the 1668 ordinance, stating that etapes were to be paid for by arrangements with receveursgeneraux des finances ofthcgeneralites of kingdom. 27 March 1668, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 22, #14. While the funds for etapes were recorded in central financial records, they probably never made it to a central treasury but stayed in the generalites. 202 Corvisier, Les Franpais, 261. 203 p r m t e c i s h e e t order, 27 August 1676, Cote d'Or, C 3675. 204 C o t e d ' O r , C 169. 205 Corvisier, Les Franpais, 262. 206 Cote d'Or, C 169, 1703; and C 3676, 2 April 1710. 207 See, for example, a 1652 order to pay for etapes of 1638 and 1641-47 Dijon, municipality, H 218. See also a list of payments ordered in 1642-43 but dated 28 May 1653. Cote d'Or,

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it is not too much out of line that payments could be several years in coming. But it is less excusable that as late as 1680, officials from Autun were still requesting payment of the deficit that they had incurred for lodging and etapes in 1666-67, a shortfall of 18,000 livres.208 Since the number of troops passing through could be great, the amount of funds laid out by locals could be substantial. From Tours, hardly on the front lines, the intendant reported that during the Nine Years' War, 19,000 troops per year passed through that city.209 During the same war, officials in Burgundy complained that their fund of 260,000 livres for reimbursement of etapes would not suffice because of the great passage of troops. 210

Pillage, Cheating, and Abuse The problems posed by the etapes system in practice far exceeded tardy payments. At the worst, troops on the road simply pillaged on their way with little respect for their routes, despite repeated orders to the contrary. Truly horrendous excesses occurred during the war with Spain before 1659. Ordinances from the 1640s and 1650s commanded local officials to arrest the leaders of soldiers not following their routes.211 Of course, such orders did not spell out how town mayors were to separate officers from their armed and often battle-hardened troops. One directive of 1650 stipulated the assembly of the local men at the first sound of alarm bells [la cloche et du tauxin] to offer armed resistance, but this could be dangerous. 212 Cheating on routes and billets was not unknown. By claiming that more troops were taken care of than actually were, extra money or rations could be obtained. Etapiers were guilty, but so were the common people who quartered soldiers in their homes. 213 Officers might refuse to assemble their men for review, presumably because they had fewer men than they claimed. Such was the case for six captains of the Champagne regiment who received fines of 150 livres at the close of the Dutch War for not undergoing such a review before the aldermen [echevins] of Sury.214 Even sergeants offended; one sergeant Brunet even manufactured phony routes.215

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209 211 212

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C 3673. In 1659, the parlement sitting in Dijon requested the monarchy either to pay 20 sols per soldier, or at least allow this as a deduction on the taille. Dijon, municipal, H218. Cote d'Or, C 3675, 6 April 1680. See, as well, the case in which elus in Burgundy received orders in 1679 to pay for expenses incurred in 1675-77, meaning an arrears of as much as four years. 21 January 1679, Cote d'Or, C3675. Corvisier, Les Francis, 247-48. 210 31 December 1696, Cote d'Or, C 3676. See the ordinance of 22 December 1641 in Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe," 19-20. See the order of 12 February 1650, Dijon, H217 bis. For the dangers of denying kgement, consider the fate of Sanscoin described in the next chapter. For one complaint that an etapier was turning mfausse routes, see AG, A12265, #100, 8 February 1710. For an example of cheating by inhabitants, see Cotes d'Or, C 3675, 3 June 1687. AN, G7i774, #68. This document records a number of cases of fines against officers for this reason. AG, A J I8OI, #522, 15 May 1704, Chamillart to Le Gendre.

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More common after 1659 are the stack of complaints about minor insults, thefts, and fights.216 These were enough to make life difficult or unacceptable in some towns. The inhabitants of Saint-Julien deserted their homes to avoid lodging troops.217 In 1693, even Vauban testified that etapes around Cap had "depopulated the country."218 So an intendant could speak of a town in his jurisdiction as "a little miserable town, weighed down by etapes"219 It was no wonder that towns threatened with having their names added to the route protested.220 Complaints and abuses could hardly be avoided, and no doubt some communities were hard hit. But the question remains: Were etapes a universal disaster to the local community? There is reason to suppose that, while the system did not work perfectly, it functioned adequately and was not an inevitable disaster to French towns. Vauban opposed marching troops around unless absolutely necessary, owing to "an infinity of small pillages on the routes, that extremely inconvenience the country exposed to these passages.55221 Yet his proposals to correct abuses were surprisingly modest. He wanted movements restricted and small groups sent on the roads under proper command.222 LIVING OFF THE COUNTRY VERSUS S U P P L Y BY M A G A Z I N E S Until relatively recently, historians have agreed that over the course of the grand siecle, armies became more and more bound to magazines by "umbilical cords55 of supply. This conclusion stressed both the growing regularity and the increasing limitations of warfare in the seventeenth century. In 1977, Martin van Creveld, in Supplying War, challenged that orthodoxy by arguing that the armies of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries depended much less on magazines than usually believed and, to the contrary, lived off the country in the main.223 The strategic, or at least operational, implications of his assertions not only attack stereotypes about the grand siecle but question common analyses of Napoleonic mobility that attribute it to Bonaparte cutting himself loose from the tyranny of supply from the rear, because van Creveld contends that this tyranny never existed. However, despite the value 216

217 218 219 220

221 222

223

For controversies and combats between hosts and soldiers in and around Dijon, see Dijon, H 256 and Cote d'Or, C 3642, and C 3674. Cote d'Or, 15 February 1672, C 2897. 6 January 1693 from Nice, Vauban to LePelletier, Rochas, 2:364. Corvisier, Les Franfais, 274. See, for example, Cote d'Or, C3676, October 1703, an inquiry into replacing the town of Issueville with Gemeaux. Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, Oisivetes de M. de Vauban, 3 vols. (Paris: 1842-46), 2:232. To limit abuses, he would give only ten men to a sergeant or fifteen men to a lieutenant. AG, MR 1828, piece 1. M a r t i n v a n Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton ( C a m b r i d g e : 1977).

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of his work in attracting attention to this understudied aspect of war, Supplying War is aflawedwork.224 Nowhere is it more misleading than in its denial of the essential role of magazines and orderly supply from the rear in early modern logistics. A brief discussion of some of the basic issues involved ought to make this clear. The Complexities of Living off the Country First, if the term living off the country simply means that soldiers traveled about without having to drag a supply train behind them, which seems to be van Creveld's notion, then this category of self-supply includes several very different methods. Some had nothing to do with supporting armies on the march by foraging parties who scoured the countryside to feed the army on a daily basis, the method of living off the country that most commonly comes to mind. Considering how important the concept of "living off the country" is to van Creveld, it is surprising that he did not explore it with much care. There is no question that early modern armies exploited the materiel of areas that they occupied or passed through. As mentioned earlier in the discussion of fodder, its weight and bulk demanded that armies gather it on campaign. But granting the undeniable need to live off the country in terms of fodder for animals does not say anything about the need for an army to feed its human element with other kinds of supply. It is also true, as already mentioned, that troops might be paid and then simply required to purchase their food from local sources. Yet reliance upon pay gave rise to serious abuses when pay was late or insufficient or when the food supply fell short of meeting the needs of large numbers of soldiers concentrated in a small area. A more regular form of extortion compelled towns, cities, and entire districts to support a passing or occupying army. This was an old system that crystallized during the Thirty Years' War as "contributions." Under the threat of force, civil authorities agreed to provide money and goods to the general of the threatening army or to officials of the ruler he served. Towns that refused to pay ran the risk of being sacked and burned. However, after the Thirty Years' War, contributions often shifted the burden of maintaining an army from regular taxes raised at home to war taxes imposed on the populations of occupied territory. As such, contributions might not affect the day-to-day operations of the logistic system. To the extent that contributions were used to stock permanent or improvised magazines, which then maintained the soldiers by more regular means - that is, by depots, army 224

See criticisms in John A. Lynn, "The History of Logistics and Supplying War" in John A. Lynn, ed., Feeding Mars: Logistics in Western Warfare from the Middle Ages to the Present (Boulder, CO: 1993), 9-27. See, as well, Lynn, "Food, Funds, and Fortresses," 137-59, in the same volume.

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ovens, and convoys - the raising of contributions really does notfitthe category of "living off the country" as van Creveld defines it. Moving by etapes freed troops from carrying their own supplies, but it required considerable administrative preparation. Such troops did not forage for food along their way, since they knew it would be waiting for them each evening at the end of their march. The most impressive march by any army during the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough's trek in 1704 from the Low Countries to the Danube, was supported by a form of the etapes system on the grand scale that harked back to the old Spanish Road. His troops arrived at prearranged stops and purchased food from local authorities who had collected it in advance. The golden key to Marlborough's success was the cash that he brought with him in his strongboxes, a luxury extremely rare or even impossible for other armies of the period. By itself, this case offers poor proof that armies could have dispensed with supply lines and just foraged to maintain themselves on the march. There is little in common between Marlborough's march and that by Napoleon in 1805 along much of the same ground. Napoleon's soldiers foraged for the majority of their supplies; Marlborough's did not. The form of self-supply that most usually comes to mind, foraging for supplies by entire field armies on campaign, did not typify French logistics in the second half of the grand siecle^ since it posed many problems and dangers to French armies themselves. Turenne discussed living off the country from his experience in Germany at midcentury. He argued that half of a force living by foraging had to be composed of cavalry, since it alone could forage effectively, and that a cavalryman could only seize enough for himself and one other man.225 By his calculations, an army would have to be small and lopsidedly heavy in expensive cavalry to survive. Moreover, foraging could lead to pillage, or it could encourage desertion. Prior to 1659, French units established a grim record of excess against French and foreign populations. After that date, French troops abused foreign populations on occasion, particularly when that abuse was part of a policy of intimidation and coercion, as during the invasion of Holland in 1672 or the devastation of the Palatinate in 1688-89; however, such foraging was not the standard manner of feeding troops in the field. Foraging for food was too wasteful of resources, unpredictable in results, and dangerous to discipline to become the primary means of supply. Reluctance to let armies forage had a great deal to do with fundamental and widely accepted assumptions about motivation and morale. Consequently, French armies did not live on the country in order to feed the troops. Facts, Figures, and Food Van Creveld asserts "In no instance . . . is there any question of a force on the move being supplied solely by convoys," and "magazines never contained, 225

Louis Susane, Histoire de la cavaleriefranpaise,3 vols. (Paris: 1874), 1:106.

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nor could they contain, more than a fraction of the army's needs.5'226 Such phrases are technically correct but create a misleading impression. In trying to demonstrate that armies lived off the country, van Creveld, by his handling of numbers, distorts the essentials of logistics. Part of the problem results from the way he measures supply, and part comes from the way in which he simplifies the task of preparing the most essential food item, bread. He rightly points out that for field armies on campaign, the green fodder that kept the horses in the field had to be harvested locally because carting it great distances was prohibitive. Fodder could be found close by the army, and since it required no processing other than cutting it in thefields,it could be easily "produced" by troops on campaign. But any attempt to evaluate supply must distinguish between fodder for animals and food for men. By lumping supplies together and speaking of weights and percentages of the total, van Creveld does violence to this necessary distinction. Weights can be deceiving. Assume an army of 60,000 soldiers; it would require 90,000 rations of bread daily, once the extra rations for officers and noncombatants are considered.227 With a standard ration of iy2 pounds of bread per man per day, this hypothetical force would require 135,000 pounds, or 67.5 tons, of bread each day. The army's 40,000 horses, however, would require 1,000 tons of green fodder plus perhaps 120 tons of oats. By weight, then, food amounted to considerably less than 10 percent of the army's supply needs. Thus, van Creveld can rightly say that magazines only held a small percentage of the army's needs, since magazines provided so little forage. At one point he concludes "It is obvious that the need to obtain the ninety per cent of supplies that were not brought up from the rear must have done more to dictate the movement of armies than the ten percent that were 55228 'jj i e ^plication might be, why not just forget the 10 percent and dispense with supplies brought up from the rear? But the 10 percent minority of supply included the army's bread, and the 90 percent majority was overwhelmingly forage. By not considering the restraints of the 10 percent, an army would starve or dissolve. Examine more closely the mathematics of foraging for bread by considering a scenario that van Creveld himself presents to prove his point that early modern armies could easily have supplied themselves on the march without being bound to magazines. An army of 60,000 requiring 90,000 bread rations per day is to march 100 miles at a rate of 10 miles per day.229 226 227

228 229

Van Creveld, Supplying War, 25, 39. Van Creveld's emphasis. Puysegur, a great authority of the day estimated that an army of 120,000 soldiers consumed 180,000 bread rations daily. Jacques-Francois de Chastenet de Puysegur, Art de la guerre par principes et par regies, vols. 1 and 2 (Paris: 1749), 2:62 in Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 5. Van Creveld, Supplying War, 24. Van Creveld, Supplying War, 34. This use of an army of 60,000 requiring 90,000 rations and including 40,000 horses would seem to come from the discussion in Perjes, "Army Provisioning," a work cited in van Creveld's notes. It is probably Perjes who showed van Creveld the way to Puysegur. It is a shame that van Creveld did not take Perjes whole, because Perjes comes to very different conclusions.

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Such an army will require 600 tons of flour to feed itself on its ten-day march. Parties from the army will forage 5 miles to either side of the route of march, meaning that they can draw on 1,000 square miles. Van Creveld assumes a population of 45 per square mile and that the inhabitants have stored away six months' worth of flour and grain, yielding a total of 7,000 tons available to the army. He concludes that the army will have plenty of bread to eat. But this is historical slight of hand. Consider the figures another way. Given that forage parties will roam 5 miles in each direction, they will cover an area 10 miles square - that is, 100 square miles - from which the army can draw each day. According to his calculations, this area squirreled away 700 tons of flour, and the army needs only 60 tons per day. But bread, not grain or flour, was the vital commodity. Grain might grow in the field, but it had to be cut, threshed, and ground into flour, andflourhad to be baked before it became bread. With a population density of 45 people per square mile, there will be only 4,500 inhabitants in 100 square miles; therefore, the capacity of village mills and ovens in the area will only be sufficient to bake bread for approximately this number of consumers. Limited oven capacity explains why armies brought along their own ovens on campaign. Even if the local ovens burned night and day to double or triple their output, they would still produce only 10 to 15 percent of the bread required by the army. Within the parameters set by van Creveld himself, his army would not thrive but starve. He cannot rescue himself by simply changing the scenario to add that the army could bring its own ovens along. The time consumed by setting up and breaking down field ovens meant that the only way to use them efficiently was to establish a bank of them and then supply an advancing force with convoys shuttling back and forth from the ovens. At this point, we are back to the limitations imposed by regular supply from the rear - exactly what van Creveld claims to avoid in his example. To the extent that large armies required bread, they usually had to supply it via magazines and army ovens. Van Creveld's own example does not demonstrate his point but the rather different one that baking capacity limited movement as much as did the availability of grain.230 A far more careful study of logistics by G. Perjes argues just this and concludes that seventeenthcentury armies had to be supplied with bread from the rear.231 Because Supplying War is a work of synthesis, we ought not to fault van Creveld for not having mastered all the campaigns or eras of warfare from original sources. Yet he remains open to criticism for overly selective use of the very works 230

231

The importance of ovens and mills is highlighted by a French directive of 1636 designed to make it as difficult as possible for the attacking Spanish armies to continue their advance: "Tell all the generals to send out before them seven or eight companies of cavalry in a number of places with workers to break all the ovens and mills in an area stretching from their own fronts to as close as possible to the enemy" (in Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe," 86). Perjes, "Army Provisioning."

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that he employs, a notable case in point being PerjeVs important study, which if taken fully leads to very different conclusions than those reached by van Creveld. During the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the dependence on magazines and supply convoys on campaign was very real. Even such an exponent of mobility as Eugene of Savoy wrote in 1705: "Without a [supply] train . . . I am unable to advance further, especially when the army is going from one region to another, and the magazine located here or there is too far away, and it takes several days to establish a magazine in the new place, and to put the bakeries into operation. And meanwhile the army is in need of bread and if we cannot take bread with us, how should I help myself?"232 CONCLUSION To feed the ever larger forces of the Bourbon monarchs, the French developed a logistic system with unprecedented capacity. In evolving this more effective system, military administration, particularly the central administration, did not undergo a radical transformation in personnel or practices, although it did develop substantially, most notably in establishing a series of permanent magazines and in extending the responsibilities and powers of the intcndants. This more moderate change at the center was the case because logistics was handled primarily on the local, field-army level and because the impressive task of supplying food remained in the hands of private contractors. It would be tempting to credit logistic development to a single individual or to see it spring up through some sudden transformation. Such was not the case. While important development occurred, it grew incrementally out of older practices. Military administration, thus, followed the pattern of the cmcien regime, where drastic and rapid change was seen as corrosive to the traditional nature of society and government, and where the future had to wear the garb of the past, often in several layers. In addition, while rational design played a part, it had to accommodate itself to financial necessity. In the matter of logistics, direct supply by the state gave way to supply by entrepreneurs, since those munitionnaires provided not only the necessities of war, but the credit without which the state's forces could not have taken the field. Once again, the ideal of absolutist control became the reality of private enterprise supervised by state inspection. Whatever the administrative system, the technology of horse-drawn forces defined the logistics of food and fodder so that they imposed conflicting operational demands on the army of the grand siecle, demands that had to be balanced. On the one hand, an army benefited from maintaining contacts with its magazines in order to feed its men. Changes in camp complicated the matter, and rapid advances threatened the army with food shortages or 232 p r m c e E U gene of Savoy, Feldzil0e des Prinzen Eugcn von Savoyen, 13 vols. (Vienna: 1876-86), vol. 8, supplement H, 305 in Perjes, "Army Provisioning," 29.

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worst. On the other hand, since fodder had to be harvested in the area surrounding an army's encampment, and since an army soon exhausted the available green forage, armies had to strike camp and move periodically to ensure adequate supplies of fodder. In any case, the army required more than food and fodder to maintain itself in the field; there were other essentials, the subjects of the next chapter.

5 Providing Other Essentials

T

HE expanding army of the grand siecle demanded more than food and fodder; the awesome giant had also to be paid, housed, clothed, and armed. Without these essentials, it could not or would not perform as ordered and expected; it might languish or turn angry. Either alternative was unacceptable. As in all other aspects of logistics and supply, growth of the army increased demands on administrators and entrepreneurs, yet they responded and the army survived, even when it did not thrive, as it exceeded 250,000 men and approached 400,000. Government met the needs of the Goliath it had created by adapting traditional practices and by instituting new ones. By and large, older ways had relied more on local resources and local agents, while now the state bit by bit took over the responsibility of providing for the troops, either through the action of its own agents or by more strictly regulating the entrepreneurs who actually supplied or served the army. In this chapter, the focus changes to pay, logement, clothing, and small arms. Pay was an absolute necessity, since so much of what a soldier required he had to buy for himself either directly or through deductions from his wages. In addition, pay represented a bond, part of a contract between the soldier and the state. The soldier swore obediently to put his life at risk, and the state promised to provide for him, but when pay did not arrive, that bond lost its force. The housing of troops, logernent^ not only supplied necessary shelter; it brought the civilian and military communities together, since troops boarded in civilian houses. Clothing not only protected the soldier from the elements, it also came to represent a new psychology of uniform behavior, although the transition to uniforms in the seventeenth century did not come quickly. Arms, perhaps the most important items in defining the soldier, proved to be the most easily, or at least the most dependably, supplied of a soldier's needs. With all this, and food and fodder, the giant could live from day to day and contest the field at the king's command. 147

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PAY During the 1627-28 siege of La Rochelle, Louis XIII wrote that "for the accomplishing of these designs . . . it is necessary to maintain a good Army, well paid."1 Pay was at the basis of successful campaigns; it also amounted to the largest single expense of maintaining the French army. This is not simply because of the cash actually put in the hands of the soldier, but because in addition to this, his food and clothing were also funded as deductions from his pay. With so much of the army's cost included in pay, the rates and mechanisms of pay were essential military questions. Pay Rates Official pay rates for French troops declined over the course of the grand siecle. That decline appears only slight when measured in monetary units, but when judged in terms of its purchasing power, the fall in military wages was far more substantial. It is less easy to explain this decrease than it is to observe its effect. Population abundance does not account for wage decline, because population, which increased during the first half of the century, fell somewhat after 1648. In general, wage rates were low in the seventeenth century, but military pay seemed to be even at the bottom of this scale. One thing seems certain though: Lower wages made it less costly to build the huge armies assembled by Louis XIV. French records of the time count money in a system similar to the old English manner; 12 deniers equaled a sol, or sou, and 20 sols equaled a livre, the French pound. Occasionally, amounts were figured in ecus, valued at 3 livres. Pay for the French infantry soldier doubled during the sixteenth century, beginning at 5 livres per month, or 3 sols 4 deniers per day, through the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and then rising steadily to 6 livres by the 1540s, 7 livres in the 1560s, 8 livres in the 1580s, and finally 10 livres per month, or 6 sols 8 deniers per day, in 1600.2 The precise rate for infantry depended on the weapons they carried and the extent of their armor; in 1553, actual pay by regulation could run from 6 to 15 livres, pikemen with full 1 2

Peter Mervault, The Last Famous Siege of the City ofRochel together with the Edict of Nantes (London: 1680), 26. I thank Brian Sandberg for this reference. Tabulations of pay rates for infantry and mounted forces can be found in Joseph Servan, Recherches sur la force de farmee fran$aise, depuis Henri TV jusqu'a la fin de 1806 (Paris: 1806), "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805"; AG, MR 1972, #7, "Etat de ce qui revenait par annee . . . 1340-1730"; manuscript tabulation in AG, Bib., A lh 638, vol. 2; and the highly detailed material for the period ca. 1710 in Jean Roland de Mallet, Compts Rendus de radministration desfinances du royaume de Trance (London: 1789), 157-70. Other substantiation for the figures presented here come from the ordinance of 1553 in AG, MR 1881, #5; for 1707, AN, G7i78o, #212. See as well Xavier Audouin, Histoire de Padministration de la guerre, 4 vols. (Paris: 1811), 2:249, 377; Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et ^organisation de Farmee monarchique (Paris: 1906), 271-328; and Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, 4 vols. (Paris: 1862-64), 1:195-96.

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armor receiving the best wages.3 This basic rate of 10 livres remained constant through the first decades of the seventeenth century; during the long war with Spain, the rate for a soldier dropped to 6 sols per day and then fell further to 5 sols for a musketeer in 1660.4 Pikemen continued to earn more than musketeers; during Louis's personal reign, pikemen received 5 sols 6 deniers per day at a time when musketeers' and fusiliers' rates stayed at 5 sols.5 Cavalry troopers always received higher pay than their foot-bound comrades. Cavalry wages also escalated during the sixteenth century, going from 7 livres 10 sols per month, or 5 sols per day, in 1500 to 60 livres per month, or 2 livres per day by 1600. By 1610, however, this decreased to 40 livres per month, or 1 livre, 6 sols, 8 deniers per day, where it remained through midcentury.6 In the 1660s, this rate declined to 15 sols per day, against which 8 sols were withheld for forage and bread, giving the trooper an effective pay of 7 sols.7 This rate of 7 sols per day held true for the rest of the 1600s, as the cost of fodder for the horse shifted directly to the state.8 The War of the Spanish Succession saw the rate at 7 sols 4 deniers.9 Dragoons earned less than cavalry but more than infantry. In the 1670s, dragoons received 11 sols per day, against which 5 were deducted for a yield of 6 sols. At the close of the jjrand siecle^ they still earned 6 sols per day, the deductions for the care of the horse having been transferred.10 At times, officers promised men a pay rate higher than the official one, apparently as an inducement to enlist, but this practice was condemned by law.11 3

4

5

6 8

9 10 11

Ordinance of 23 December 1553 in AG, MR 1881, #5. During the Wars of Religion, a halbredier received 6 livres per month, an arquebusier 7, and a Swiss 9. Philippe Contamine, ed., Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 1 (Paris: 1992), 317. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:344, dates the drop to 6 sols as 1629, but Servan, Recherches, "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805," lists pay as 6 sols 8 deniers as late as 1640, to fall to 6 sols by 1651. On 1660, see Andre, Le Tellier, 289. Pay rates given here for infantry and cavalry, ca. 1660, are also supported by a 1663 memoir written by d'Aurignac and published as Paul Azan, Un tacticien du XVJIe siecle (Paris: 1904), 100. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:404, for 1660; pay rates given in detail from the 6 February 1670 ordinance by Rousset, Louvois, 1:195-96; and Victor Belhomme, Uarmeefran$aise en 1690 (Paris: 1895), 26, shows the same for 1690. Servan, Bxcherches, "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805," states that during wartime, 1668,1689, and 1701, the infantry pay rate dipped to 4 sols 8.66 deniers. AG, Bib., Aih 638, vol. 2. 7 Rousset, Louvois, 1:195. Servan, Recherches, "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805," states that during wartime, 1689 and 1701, the cavalry pay rate dipped to 6 sols 10 deniers. This does not correspond to figures in Belhomme, Varme'e franfaise en 1690, 26, or in Mallet, Compts rendus, 157-70. Mallet, Compts rendus, 157-70. Rousset, Louvois, 1:195; and Mallet, Compts rendus, 157-70. Ordinances of 10 December 1686 and 20 June 1714 promised 30 livres and a discharge to any soldier denouncing another for receiving a pay higher than that allowed by law. Georges Girard, Le service militaire en France a lafindu regne de Louis XIV: Kacolage et milice, 1701-171$ (Paris: 1915), 49-

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The rates quoted for all branches refer to regular French regiments at the rate for quartered troops. Guard units and foreign regiments had their own, higher, pay scales. In addition, the rates cited are full pay rates - that is, wages earned during peacetime and winter quarters; wages fell for most soldiers when they went on campaign. As a rule, troops in garrison during peacetime or in winter quarters paid for their food out of their pay, but troops on campaign in wartime received less cash, although their bread came directly from the state. Campaign pay during Louis's last two wars amounted to only i sol per day, plus rations for an infantryman, 2 sols for dragoons, and 3 sols for cavalry. In fact, campaign and winter-quarters pay did not differ quite so much as first appears; it had more to do with bookkeeping for various deductions than with the amount that the soldier actually received. Consider the infantryman who received 1 sol per day on campaign. When he was in quarters at the end of the century, his captain withheld up to 2 sols per day for bread, 1 sol for the masse (a fund to buy new clothes), and a bit more for the Invalides. Moreover, at least after 1690, the soldier also was charged for the cost of half a pound of meat per day, which can be estimated at 1 sol 5 deniers.12 With these subtractions from his 5-sols pay, the infantryman could expect to see no more than 1 sol per day in his hand over winter quarters that is, the same amount he actually pocketed on campaign. Within the context of official pay, regulations might redefine the actual pay received. The 1653 regulation for winter quarters, a time when infantrymen supposedly received pay of 6 sols per day, prescribed that infantry would actually get only 2 sols per day from the local population as ustensile (see later for details on ustensile), 2 sols per day as pay from the government, and 24 ounces of bread that could be valued at an additional 2 sols.13 At times, real pay might exceed the regulation amount, as in 1666, when Louis XIV granted his troops in the low countries extra allowances of 1 sol for infantry and 3 sols for cavalry "because I knew that foodstuffs were more expensive there than elsewhere."14 In 1704, troops garrisoned in Dijon also benefited from augmented pay, as the infantry got 8 sols per day.15 Full official pay earned by soldiers, troopers, and dragoons stood at about the rate of semi-skilled labor, but if you count only the amount actually given to troops by the paymaster, it was at the bottom of pay scales. The best estimate puts urban weavers' wages at 8 to 10 sols per day in the late seventeenth century. Country weavers made less at 5 to 6 sols per day, and spinners took in 3 sols 6 deniers or less. Skilled tradesmen earned far more. 12

13 14

For bread, meat, and Invalides deductions, see Servan, Recherches, "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805." This states that the bread deduction was at 1 sol 6 deniers by the regulation of 7 September 1660 and increased to 2 sols with the ordinance of 30 March 1684. Ktglement for winter quarters, 4 November 1653, in Andre, Le Tellier^ 667-82. Louis, Memoires, 1:15, 244-45. 15 Cote d'Or, C 3676, order of 14 March 1704.

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Journeymen carpenters earned 17 sols a day in Nevers and 26 in Rouen. 16 It is interesting to note that civilians hired to stand watch in redoubts along fortified lines were paid substantially more than regular infantry. One set of documents shows that such civilians turned guards in Flanders received 15 sols per day in 1702 and 12 sols in 1703 and 1704.17 This implies that civilians could not be tempted for the low wages that soldiers accepted. In fact, there is little reason to see the army as anything other than an employer of last resort, given the low wages. Only hard times seem to have driven men into the ranks when they had other opportunities, as during the famines of 1694 and 1709. Some historians claim that the decrease in military real pay rates made possible the growth in the number of troops - here is a key issue.18 Measured in terms of its purchasing power, how much did army pay rise or fall for enlisted men over the course of the jjrandsikle, 1610-1715? Servan compared the wage to the mark of silver, and judged by this standard, setting the base period as 1600-10, infantry pay declined 45 percent by 1660 and 57 percent by 1714.19 It might be wiser to compare the wage with the price of wheat, a better index of value of money, and this is possible thanks to the Baulant series of wheat prices.20 The average price for a setier of wheat in Paris during the first five decades of the century, 1611-60, was 14.127 livres, while the average price during the personal reign of Louis XIV, 1661-1715, rose to 18.622. This represents a rise of 32 percent over the course of the jjrand siecle, a period when basic infantry pay went down from 10 livres to 7 livres 10 sols per month. Gauging the infantry soldier's purchasing power by the amount of wheat he could buy with that month's salary reveals a decline of 41 percent - a very sizable drop. Thus, measured in silver or pegged to a price index, the wages of common soldiers fell substantially over the course of thejjrand siecle, justifying the notion that diminished pay accompanied, and quite probably encouraged, the growth of the army. Indeed, the decline to 5 sols per day for infantry preceded the expansion in wartime forces for the Dutch War and the Nine Years' War. Given their low pay, infantry took the opportunity to earn extra money by working on fortifications, as at Ypres in 1681, when soldiers earned 9 to 16

17 18

19 20

Fernand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse, eds., Histoire economique et sociale de la France, vol. 2 (Paris: 1970), 668-70. AD, Nord, C 8645. David Kaiser, Politics & War: European Conflict from Phillip II to Hitler (Cambridge, MA: 1990), 146, writes: "Both Louis and his fellow European monarchs also seem to have been able to raise larger armies simply because the average soldier's wages were declining in the latter half of the seventeenth century." See the old claim that "the soldier, rich under Henri IV, was impoverished beyond the point of any other profession." Audouin, Histoire de ^administration, 2:248. See, as well, his comments on 2:377-78. Andre, Le Tellier, 290, makes a big point of denying a decline in pay, 1643-66, while Le Tellier was at the helm. Servan, Recherches, "Tableau de la valeur intrinseque de la solde, 1600-1805." Micheline Baulant, "Prix des grains a Paris de 1431 a 1788," Annales, E. S. G , vol. 23 (1968).

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10 sols per day for manual labor.21 Soldiers benefiting from these higher wages had to surrender a sol a day, probably to compensate their comrades who had to stand guard while they labored.22 Noncommissioned officers received proportionately higher wages. Infantry sergeants were paid two or three times the amount given a private soldier; during the War of the Spanish Succession, when soldiers earned 5 sols per day, their sergeants earned 10. In cavalry, the situation was somewhat different. The marechal de bgis, today a noncommissioned officer, was considered an officer in the seventeenth century and paid at a rate three and a half times the wage of a trooper. A brigadier, a true noncommissioned officer, hardly made more than a trooper - by the end of the grand siecle, 8 sols per day as opposed to the trooper's 7 sols 4 deniers. Again, campaign pay was far lower, as during the War of the Spanish Succession, when an infantry sergeant's campaign pay dropped to 2 sols in addition to 2 rations of bread. 23 Officers received a great deal more than did their men. Infantry captains pulled down 50 livres per month in 1500, 106 livres during the second half of the sixteenth century, and 125 livres during the first half of the seventeenth. This amounted to ten to fifteen times the wages of a soldier in the ranks. Lieutenants of infantry earned 50 livres when the captains earned 125 livres. Cavalry rates were higher, as one would expect. From 1550 to 1580, captains earned about 167 livres per month and lieutenants about 92. During the first half of the seventeenth century, the official rates stood at 412 livres 10 sols for captains and 262 livres 10 sols for lieutenant. 24 In the 1660s, pay rates for officers drastically declined. Infantry captains received 75 livres per month, while their counterparts in cavalry earned 180 livres. Infantry lieutenants got 45 livres and cavalry lieutenants 135. By the end of Louis's reign, officers made still less. Captains of infantry were paid 60 livres per month, while dragoon captains made 90 livres and cavalry captains 150. Lieutenants received 30 livres in the infantry, 50 livres in the dragoons, and 75 livres in the cavalry. To these sums must be added some special incentives to officers, such as pay supplements to captains who kept their companies full. Just as with common soldiers, garrison pay for officers differed from their campaign pay. Rousset states that officers received 50 percent more wages on campaign than they did in garrison, according to regulations of the 1660s and 1670s. Thus, a captain earned 75 livres in garrison and 112 livres 10 deniers on campaign. Yet by the end of the reign, officers suffered a drop from garrison to campaign wages, just as did their men. During the Sun King's last war, an infantry captain made 2 livres, or 40 sols, per day in 21

22 23 24

Henry Chotard, Louis XW, Louvois, Vauban et les Fortifications du nord de la France (Paris: 1889), 179. In 1682, soldiers pulled from regiments were paid even more, 18 sols per day, or over three times their normal pay. Chotard, 45. AG, Bibl., Col. des ord., vol. 24, #92, 23 September 1680. Mallet, Compts rendus, charts, 163, 169-70. Wage chart in AG, Bib., Aih 638, vol. 2.

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winter and only 6 sols per day on campaign. This contrast owes something to the fact that on campaign an infantry captain also drew six bread rations a day, costing 12 sols and four forage rations, which if they had to be bought cost as much as 12 to 20 sols per ration.25

Mechanisms of Pay Regulations from thcjjrand siecle prescribed strict guides for paying troops. Already in the sixteenth century, royal directives were quite complete on the subject. An ordinance of 12 August 1523 commanded that no payments would be made and no reviews held without the express command of the king or his agents and that commissaires and controleurs had to be present at such reviews.26 Reviews and payment were inseparably linked. One directive, circa 1600, advised: Never hold a review without money "for sometimes the soldiers having been reviewed but not paid, seize the commissaires and controleurs.^27 Reviews not only counted the number of men in a company, verified the condition of their weapons and clothing, and paid the men present; they also provided the occasion at which troops took oaths of loyalty and obedience. 28 In 1629, the well-known but probably overrated Code Michau further regulated the pay process. The code prescribed that pay would be handed over in advance and that there would be a pay master in each regiment. 29 During the reign of Louis XIV, the military writer Gaya described the process; after the review by commissaires^ the tresoriers would deliver the money as ordered by the army intendant^ while an infantry guard would always stand over the treasury that would ordinarily remain in the headquarters section, the quartier du roi, in the encampment. 30 Authorities calculated wages in montres, or "reviews," which was a unit of account; however, there was no set time of payment associated with a montre. The French experimented with ten montres in 1633, dropped the number to eight per year, each of forty-five days, by 1635, and then further reduced the figure to six of forty-five days in 1636, with the provinces to pick up the remaining two montres?1 The amount presented to the troops was actually 25

26 28 29

30

31

AD, Cote d'Or, C3676, order of 14 March 1704, states the figure as 12 sols for a ration. In the winter of 1688-89, forage cost 20 sols a ration in Germany, AG, A*829, 26 and 28 December 1688, in Ronald Thomas Ferguson, "Blood and Fire: Contribution Policy of the French Armies in Germany (1668-1715)," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1970, 94A G , M R 1881, #1. 27 A G , M R 1881, #17 (bis). See, for an example of oath taking at reviews circa 1600, MR 1881, #17. Code Michau, 1629, articles 222 and 239, in Francois Andre Isambert et al., eds., Recueil general des anciennes loisfran$aisesydepuis Van 420, jusqu'a la Revolution de 1789, vol. 16 (Paris: 1829), 285, 287. L o u i s d e Gaya, Le nouvel art de la guerre et la maniere dont on la fait aujourd^huy en France (Paris: 1692), 41. Richelieu, Lettres, instructions diplomatiques, etpapiers d^e'tat, d'Avenel, ed., 8 vols. (Paris: 185377), 4:523, Jan. 1634 in David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the

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paid in prets ^ to be paid each nine or ten days, or essentially three prets to the month.32 The prets also became something of a unit of account, so that the reglement for winter quarters of 12 October 1650 stated that troops were to be paid in eighteen puts to be given in six payments - that is, one payment a month for each of the succeeding six months of winter quarters.33 The prets would remain the standard of payment for the rest of the grand siecle. Specific regkments for winter quarters might alter the formal rules of payment in particular situations. The 1651 regkment broke the rule that combined payment and review. Companies took in the first three payments without passing reviews; captains would receive money on the basis of a fullstrength company, forty men for infantry and thirty-six for cavalry, officers included. However, the fourth payment, to come on 1 March, would be made with a review; heads would be counted and money awarded according to the count. The fifth payment would come as the troops were to take the field in mid-April; by this point, the companies were to be at full strength. When Le Tellier came to office, tresoriers of the ordinaire and extraordinaire des guerres, who handled the actual pay, took as their cut between 3 and 6 deniers per livre, or 1.25 to 2.5 percent.34 The money did not always go through the treasurers. The ordinance of October 1650 cited previously stipulated that officials were to raise the money to pay the troops from the local population. These funds were then to be credited against their arrears in paying their tattles since 1647 or to be credited against future tattles ?s The money then never reached Paris but was levied and spent on the spot. The 1653 regkment on winter quarters gave the same instructions to raise money for pay locally.36 In 1703, Louis XIV instructed his marshal Villars to raise over 40 percent of the funds he needed to pay his army from contributions raised in Germany.37 Shortfalls and Shipment The pay system suffered from a number of problems, ranging from fraud to lack of funds. Most commonly, captains tried to get additional cash allowances by padding their rolls with phony soldiers, passe volants, at reviews.

32

33 34 35 36

37

Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1985, 91; Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:367. Code Michau, 1629, articles 223 and 239, in Isambert et al., eds., Recueilgeneral des anciennes lotsfranpaises,16:285, 287. Nine days is the usual figure for the first half of the century. But the usual notion of three prets to the month of thirty days also stipulated in regulations suggests that men were paid every ten days. 12 October 1650 regkment in SHAT, Bibl., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #84. A n d r e , Le Tellier, 303. SHAT, Bibl., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #84, 12 October 1650 reglement. "Ordinance portant interpretation et amplication du regkment du quartier d'hyver dernier, du 12 fevrier 1653," reproduced in entirety in Andre, Le Tellier, 683-90. A G , A 4 6 7 6 , #41, 27 April 1703, Louis t o Villars in Ferguson, "Blood a n d Fire," 11, 180, a n d 190.

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While this problem existed throughout the century, it was far more prevalent before the personal reign of Louis XIV than once Louvois put his stamp on military administration. In any case, even at the worst, the abuse of passe volants did not pose the greatest challenge to army solvency; the real debilitating threat arose from the periodic collapse of an inefficient and overburdened fiscal system. The recent researches of David Parrott demonstrate how exhausted royal finances became once France entered the war in 1635. Several generations ago, Louis Andre pointed out that Le Tellier found military finances in a shambles when he came to office and that he would essentially have to wait for the return of peace before he could do much to clear up the problems. 38 In 1645, that great minister wrote: "And as for money, it is neither in His Majesty's power nor even less so in that of his Eminence [Mazarin] to find some where there is none.5539 Complaints about pay that arrived in insufficient amounts, came late, or never got there at all fill volumes. In the spring of 1647, pay for Turenne's army was five or six months in arrears.40 The next year, his army again ran short.41 By July 1649, the French Army of Flanders had not received any wages since the campaign began; it was promised a demi-montre to see it through. 42 Problems continued after the Fronde as well; the pay for Turenne's forces again failed to arrive in 1657 and 1658.43 While the flow of pay improved during the period 1661-1700, there were still important lapses; in the 1690s, Vauban complained that his engineer officers were not receiving their pay.44 During the War of the Spanish Succession, the French suffered a financial collapse which approached that of the years before 1659, and as such, the reports about lack of pay and supplies became almost pathetic. The amount of money required was very great. Villars estimated the cash needed by his army as 531,000 livres per month. 45 A document from 1707 states that the entire army's requirement for pay amounted to 2,745,781 livres each month. 46 The government became increasingly unable to meet its bills. In 1706, Marshal Berwick feared that disorder would tear apart his army and begged for money ccto pay this army that hasn't got a sol"; the same year in Hainault, the prets of 13 February-3 March had not arrived. With the famine of 1709-10, the crisis became worse. Even if the government had the funds, getting them to the army posed serious problems. These sums might be supplied to the front by letters for exchange, prearranged payments from financiers, or sent in cash by wagon. 38 40 42 44 45

46

A n d r e , Le Tellier, 327. 39 Letter o f 22 A u g u s t 1645 in A n d r e , Le Tellier, 273. Jean Berenger, Turenne (Paris: 1987), 243. 41 Berenger, Turenne, 265. A G , A ^ i s , 13 Juillet 1649. 43 Berenger, Turenne, 333, 341. R e g i n a l d Blomfield, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, 1633-1707 ( N e w York: 1971), 9 6 - 9 7 . AG, Axi675, #143, 22 March 1703, "Depense pour un mois de trente jours," memoir by Villars. Here he stated that he needed 661, 212 livres, 18 sols, 4 deniers per month, but that after deducting the cost of bread, 130,500 livres, from the soldiers' pay, he would finally need only the 530,713 livres. A N , G 7 i 7 8 o , piece 212.

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Letters of exchange would have to be discounted when cashed. In 1706, there was what amounted to a 12 percent service charge for letters of exchange to Italy.47 Letters of exchange depended on a healthy economy and on the king's credit, so the value of letters of exchange had plummeted by 1709, when one junior officer complained "We cannot get a sol; everything is in bills [of exchange], with which we cannot touch a sol.55 This anxious young officer stated that he had 1,800 livres in paper, but it was worthless. 48 He begged that his family send him hard currency so that he could take care of himself and his company. The use of government promissory notes to purchase equipment and to pay other military costs in the War of the Spanish Succession also involved heavy discounts; in 1706, suppliers demanded that captains pay 30 to 40 percent more if they were paying with notes. 49 The government could also arrange to have financiers advance money at particular towns. In 1703, Louis XIV informed Villars that the marshal could get 300,000 livres payable at Augsburg, Munich, or Ulm for this army.50 Once again, this depended on the credit of the government and upon the connections and credit of its financial officers. Sometimes officers and administrators personnally borrowed money to pay their troops. This occurred, for example, in 1644, when the commissiare general of the Army of Germany, the marquis de Tracy, borrowed money to pay the cavalry.51 There were times when only the literal shipment of cash could solve the problem, and such shipments were known as voitures. In 1640, Sublet de Noyers actually brought the money up himself; Richelieu asked the generals to send him an escort.52 Mazarin dispatched a voiture of 300,000 livres in silver to troops in Germany in 1644.53 Such major shipments continued to the end ofthe grand siecle. In 1706, the treasurers had to send 500,000 livres from Paris to Lyon in voitures and at the same time order 400,000 from Collioure to Barcelona.54 Dangeau reports a shipment of 400,000 livres in newly minted money to Flanders in May 1709.55 47 48

49 50

A N , G 7 i 7 7 8 , piece 245. Letter of 10 June 1709 in Georges Girard, ed., "Un soldat de Malplaquet: Lettres du capitaine de Saint-Mayme," Carnet de Sabretache (1922), 537. C o n t a m i n e , Histoire rnilitaire, 1:538. AG, A ! i676, #41, 27 April 1703, Louis to Villars in Ferguson, "Blood and Fire," 11, 180, and 190.

51

52

53 54 55

Charles Derek Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643-1648," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, 1995, 150. O r e s t R a n u m , Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII (Oxford: 1963), n o a n d fn. See as well AG, A4i5, #6, 13 July 1649, which concerned sending a demi-montre to the Army of Flanders. Jean Berenger, Turenne (Paris: 1987), 195; A G , A 4 i 5 , # 6 o n , 13 July 1649. A N , G 7 i778, pieces 102 a n d 106. Philippe, marquis de Dangeau, Journal du marquis de Dangeau, Feuillet de Conches, ed., 19 vols. (Paris: 1854-60), 12:419.

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Consequences of Lack of Pay The consequences of lack of pay went beyond the privation of individual soldiers, troopers, and officers. Lack of pay tore the very fabric of the army, because discipline was clearly bound to suffer. A "Discours sur le reglement des trouppes," composed in 1637, spoke of the confusion and disorder that had slipped into the French army, concluding that "The essential cause of all these inconveniences is the lack of pay, the soldiers . . . believe with reason to be excused from the rigor of discipline and obedience.5'56 Everhard van Reyd concluded brutally "One could not hang those one did not pay."57 Is it any wonder that French ordinances concerning discipline began by detailing how troops were to be paid, since pay seemed the force that bound soldiers to obedience.58 Pushed to its extreme, lack of pay inspired mutiny. After defeating Spanish forces in 1635, an unpaid French army mutinied and sacked Tirlemont, massacring its inhabitants.59 Perhaps the best known mutiny in the French army during that war with Spain occurred in 1647, when short of pay, elements of the Army of Germany under Turenne rebelled.60 Lesser-known mutinies struck other field forces and garrisons, as that which affected the garrison of Cateau-Cambresis in 1651.61 The war with Spain was also filled with countless acts of mutiny on a small scale in which bodies of troops simply went on the rampage. Although problems caused by the lack of pay afflicted the army worst during the long war with Spain, they were not restricted to that period. With the cruel winter of 1709-10, garrisons at Le Quesnoy, Arras, Mons, SaintOmer, Tournai, Nassau, Valenciennes, and Cambrai mutinied.62 Later, an intendant feared that units in his area might also become unruly owing to "the necessity in which the troops for whom the pret is going to be lacking find themselves, which will cause disorders.3563 In short, as a 1712 memoir put 56

57 58

59

60 61

62

63

Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 114. See Le Tellier's comments on pay as well. Le Tellier to Mole, 13 April 1649, in Andre, Le Tellier, 274n. Everhard van Reyd in Tallett, War and Society, 123. By the 1690s, the ordinances always begin in this fashion. See Col. des ord., vol. 29, #8, #44, and #70 and vol. 31, #29. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:354. In 1637, Rohan's troops mutinied in the Valtelline when the state could not pay them, and in 1638, a French army refused to cross the Rhine into Germany unless it received at least some of its arrears. M.S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime, 1618-1789 (1988), 54; C o n t a m i n e , Histoire militaire, 1:356. See Berenger, Turenne, 241-51, for a short account o f the m u t i n y . Jacques d e Chastenet Puysegur, LesMemoires de messire Jacques de Chastenet, chevalier, seigneur de Puysegur, colonel du regiment de Piedmont, et lieutenant general des armees du Roy, 2 vols. (Paris: 1690), 2:431-34. A G , A ! 2 i 4 9 , 2 4 9 - 5 4 , 256, 258. in Claude C . Sturgill, Marshall Villars and the War of the Spanish Succession (Lexington, KY: 1965), 82. A G , A ! 2266, #316, O r m e s s o n t o Duplessis, 23 D e c e m b e r 1710.

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it, "the foundation of discipline is to pay well in order to be served well, otherwise license and impunity introduce themselves."64 LOGEMENT The army of the grand siecle was no stranger to sleeping with a roof over its head within town walls. While wartime field armies camped out during the summer, they sheltered in towns and cities each winter forfiveor six months, seeking better protection against the weather than was provided by improvised huts or flimsy tents. War or peace, troops slept in town as they traveled by etapes. Beyond this, much of the army was always consigned to garrison duty, and during peacetime, the entire army could be considered to have been composed of garrison troops. Lodging within urban confines was a common existence for armies, and, if peacetime years are averaged in with those of conflict, it was probably the most common. The troops that wintered in town, slept there as they traveled by etapes^ or garrisoned French fortresses obeyed different rules and received support by different systems than did units on campaign. The material discussed in this section deals with logement^ or the housing of troops, usually by quartering them on local civilians when these soldiers were not encamped in the field. Here the issue is quartering of troops on Bourbon subjects, not enemy populations and lands, which is dealt with in the next chapter. To some degree, the sources dictate a generic treatment of logement^ since documents themselves often mix discussion of temporary and long-term quartering. Documents registering complaints against quartered soldiers, for example, rarely state exactly if the men had been quartered simply for a night or two of etapes or if the infraction had been committed during a stay of longer duration. And appeals for exemptions from lodging soldiers are blanket appeals to cover all situations. In logement^ army life transcended narrow military concerns. When quartered on the civilian population, soldiers rubbed shoulders with the people on a daily basis, and life within that community generated clashes as well as contacts. Logement defined an important and troublesome relationship between the army and the general population. Living in Houses and Barracks Troops lived differently in town from the way they did in the field. When encamped, soldiers lived side by side only with other soldiers or civilians who had opted to follow the army, and thus to accept its terms. Life followed regular rhythms, with rules and compliance enforced by officers and the army's own disciplinary agents, the provosts and their archers. As much as possible, all was orderly and controlled, with military officials guaranteeing 64

AG, MR 1701, piece 15, 1712 memoir.

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its regularity. But when an army or units of an army lodged with civilians, both regularity and control suffered. The living conditions of quartered troops differed in a number of respects from those of men in the field. Obviously, by definition, soldiers lodged in towns and slept in fixed structures as opposed to camping in tents. Most commonly, troops were quartered in civilian houses, because special barracks were the exception in the seventeenth century. Ordinances prescribed the construction of barracks, but such regulations expressed hopes more than they described reality. The etapes ordinance of 1623 detailed that barracks be built at the principle towns of the etape routes, but little was done. 65 The seventeenth century witnessed the construction of special housing for garrison troops, but not every fortress boasted such accommodations. When new fortresses were built, or old ones substantially enlarged, barracks were part of the project; certainly this was the case for Louis's first great fortress construction at Lille.66 Expressing his desire for standardization and rationalism, Louis wanted all barracks in fortresses built on the same pattern. Vauban designed such a building in 1679, and a plate was made of the plan and copies sent to all fortresses.67 But although Louvois and Vauban pushed for barracks after 1668, the 160 barracks built by Louis XIV were still insufficient.68 And despite the ambitious plans framed during the period 171619, most of the army still lacked barracks in the mid-eighteenth century.69 Of course, when troops could be removed to their own separate buildings, the crown ensured greater control, and the townspeople enjoyed some defense from the abuses that soldiers were all too likely to commit. When Strasbourg fell to the French in 1681, the agreement with its new masters allowed the town to have barracks built at its own expense in order to keep troops from troubling public order. 70 The construction of barracks for the Gardes fran9aises began in Paris in 1692 and was complete by 1716.71 Even when special housing existed in the seventeenth century, it might accommodate only the permanent garrison companies, not regular line units temporarily quartered in a fortress. And certainly hardly any city provided enough barracks space to house the large numbers of troops stationed along the frontiers for winter quarters during wartime. Mons, which the French held during the Nine Years' War, was an exception to this rule, since by the 1690s, the town had beds for 12,000 troops. 72 65

66

Marcel M a r i o n , Dictionnaire

des institutions

de la France aux XVJIe

et XVJIIe

sikles (Paris:

1923), 339. S e e 1668 c o n t r a c t s f o r b a r r a c k s f o r t r o o p s i n Lille. Lille, Affaires G e n e r a l , #719.

67

P . Lazard, Vauban^ 1633-1707 (Paris: 1934), 4 2 - 4 3 .

68

69 C o n t a m i n e , Histoire militaire^ 1:406. Corvisier, Uarmee franpaise, 2:848-50. A n d r e Corvisier, Louvois (Paris: 1983), 4 4 1 .

70

71

72

Andre Corvisier, Uarmee frangaise de lafindu XVJIe siecle au ministere du Choiseul: Le soldat, 2 vols. (Paris: 1964), 2:848. BN, f. fr. 22221, fol. 54, 22220, fol. 96; 22213, fol. 458; 22220,59, 22210, fol. 108 in Corvisier, Les Franfais et Varmee, 230.

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If towns lacked formal barracks, they might set aside particular buildings for the use of soldiers on a temporary or permanent basis. A 1641 regulation on etapes commanded K If the market building or other public structure of the town or city where the etape will be does not suffice, the said commissaires in charge of etapes will designate ten or twelve large shelters, such as barns or other similar places in the number that will be required to lodge a regiment of infantry of about 1,000 men." 73 Huxelles proposed to lodge thirty men each in deserted houses in Mainz during 1675.74 An ordinance of 1696 stated that soldiers had to accept empty houses for their lodgings if they were available.75 The reports sent in by intendants in 1697 displayed a number of methods for billeting troops in quarters. Furnes and Ypres continued to quarter men on the civilian population, while Menin, Rochefort, and, of course, Mons consigned them to barracks.76 In any case, the accommodations in homes or barracks could be quite "cozy." While common midcentury practice dictated that soldiers slept two to a bed, at Angers in 1649, soldiers slept four to a bed in cabarets.77 By late century, three men to a bed was the rule in barracks, with sheets changed every twenty days in summer and once a month in winter.78 This was tight, but so were the confines of eight-man tents.

Villages and Walled Towns The kinds of towns chosen for logenient, particularly long-term logement^ varied. As early as the sixteenth century, the state restricted lodging to walled cities when possible.79 This not only gave troops a better defensive position but allowed for better control of potentially troublesome troops who might wander and pillage if not closed in. Seventeenth-century ordinances often repeated this partiality for walled towns. One of 15 October 1640 commanded that not only would troops be quartered for the winter in villes fermees but that their routes to these forts would ensure that on the road they were also put up for the night in "walled places.5'80 The key ordinance of 1651 repeated the insistence that troops be quartered within walls. Circumstances did not always allow this, particularly when the financial 73 74 75 76 77

78 79

80

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #28, 4 October 1641 ordinance. AG, A:875, 25 March 1675, d'Huxelles from Mayence. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 29, #8421 September 1696. Corvisier, Les Fmnpais et Varmee, 230. A n d r e , Le Tellier, 377; Albert Babeau, La vie militaire sous Vancien regime, vol. 1 (Paris: 1890), 1:89. C o r v i s i e r , Les Franpais et Varme'e, 2 3 0 ; B e l h o m m e , Uarmee franpaise en 1690, 161. AG, MR 1881, 9 February 1584, companies to be lodged in "bonnes villes closes et grosses bourgades." AG. A162, #222, 15 October 1640. Patrick Landier, "Guerre, Violences, et Societe en France, 1635-1659," doctorat de troisieme cycle, dissertation, Universite de Paris IV, 1978,18, cites this as a 1641 ordinance.

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frailty of the monarchy made it impossible, as when authorities dispersed troops to villages from 1655 through 1659, instead of to the walled towns envisioned in the regulation, to spread the burden of supporting the troops. A 1655 ordinance explained that the inhabitants of the villages that hosted soldiers were "obliged to advance the troops their food [subsistence] because it is not always possible to furnish their pay punctually from the state treasury.'581 Dispersal served as a form of credit, mobilizing local resources to support the troops while the crown promised to pay when it could. It was also common practice to require a locality to come up with the money to support troops in winter quarters, with the understanding that this amount would be deducted from tailles already owed by the community or from tallies slated to be collected in the future. An ordinance of 1653, for example, while generally confirming that of 1651, stipulated that troops were to be paid by the communities and that this be written off against back taxes owed since 164.7 P Even when things were better, the notion of letting troops consume tax revenues on site applied. In 1666, Louis quartered troops on the Flanders frontier with the intention that they should live directly off of taMe revenues.83 The 1655 decision to quarter troops in villages, especially the cavalry, not only relieved town economies, but it made fodder more available and protected the countryside. 84 Louis also dispersed his cavalrymen in 1666, spreading them out in neighboring communities that hosted perhaps no more than two cavalrymen each.85 The desire to station infantry in large walled towns also fell victim to hard times in 1656, when foot soldiers were no longer to be exclusively quartered there. 86 Infantry as well as the cavalry went out to a multitude of villages, with only two men per parish at times. However, peace allowed a reversion to placing troops exclusively in walled towns in 1660.87 After this return to die older practices, there was relatively little change in bgement with Louvois. 88 Of course, even large walled cities or fortresses could not hold entire armies, so they always dispersed to a large degree when they went into quarters. Some attempt was made to match the capacity of the towns to the number of troops detached there. In a 1657 reform, Le Tellier sent Terwil to inspect towns to see if they would be able to maintain soldiers. 89 Still, the pressures demanded that troops be reasonably well concentrated during winter 81

82 83 85

86 88

AG, A x i47, #314, reglement of 20 November 1655, in Patrick Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe en France, 1635-1659," doctorat de troisieme cycle, dissertation, Universite de Paris IV, 1978, 24. Berenger, Turenne, 328, credits Turenne with forcing this innovation on Mazarin and Fouquet. Ordinance of 12 February 1653, in Andre, Le Tellier, 689. Louis, Memoires, 1:77. 84 Andre, Le Tellier, 393. This was the case in 1666, when Louis dispersed his cavalry in villages, two by two, and forbade them to carry arms or gather in the houses of their hosts. Louis, Memoires, 1:77. Oct. 1666. Andre, Le Tellier, 394-96. 87 Andre, Le Tellier, 404. Corvisier, Louvois, 192. 89 Andre, Le Tellier, 388.

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quarters, and this meant that too many troops were stuffed into towns causing supply and disciplinary problems under Le Tellier.90 The young Louis declared that he wanted to lodge "my troops in such a way that they are no burden at all to the country where they are, and where they are ready to assemble in very little time."91 But the presence of large numbers of troops was bound to overtax local resources. And the French could stuff a great many troops in bulging towns during winter quarters. On 25 October 1678, Vervien, a town of 6,500 souls, absorbed first twenty companies of infantry and eight of cavalry, totaling about 3,000 troops. Only six days later, another fifty-one companies arrived.92 When troops competed for lodging in the same town, disputes could arise over precedence, just as they did when camping in the field. This is one of the rationales behind the elaborate French system of ranking regiments by prestige and precedence. As early as 1595, a royal ordinance had to address precisely this matter of precedence in winter quarters.93 As previously noted, the simplest manner of feeding troops quartered in villages and towns was to pay them and let them purchase their food from normal local sources. Of course, this contrasted with the system of direct food supply in the field. By dispersing an army among major cities, troops imposed less of a burden on any single local economy; in fact, troops might even benefit it by pumping in extra sums.94 With a modest number of troops in any one town, they could simply make use of the existing local networks of supply and food preparation.95 When garrisons were enlarged during wartime and stretched local capacity, munitionnaires might be called upon to supply garrisons with their food. Abuses and Exemptions Soldiers quartered with a civilian family could be a mere inconvenience or could pose a real danger. Mazarin stated that "Three days of logement of soldiers is more of a problem for an individual than is paying the taille"96 The worst abuses, by kind and frequency, occurred during the long war with Spain. The lesser run of misconduct by soldiers could be bad enough. If not kept in control, troops might abandon their assigned quarters in order to stay where they chose, as did the Gardes fran9aises in 1644.97 They might 90 92

93 94 95

96

97

Andre, Le Tellier, 383-84. 91 Louis, Memoires, 1:9. Myron P. Gutmann, War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries (Princeton: 1980), 37SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 12, #4. 21 February 1595. See intendants3 c o m m e n t s in Corvisier, Les Franpais et Varme'e, 2 7 6 - 7 9 . Troops could be dispersed much more completely in peace time. For comments on the situation after 1659, see Andre, Le Tellier, 362-63. A n d r e Corvisier, La Trance de Louis XLV, 1643-1715: Ordre interieur et place en Europe (Paris: 1979), 108. A G , A 1 86, #88, 8 March 1644, report that Gardes francaises lodged outside of assigned quarters around Paris.

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also try to demand money payments from their hosts.98 To intimidate their hosts, either to extract goods and services or simplyforthe love of it, soldiers bullied them by petty actions of destruction, such as smashing glasses." Blustering soldiers might also demand dinner and wine for their friends.100 It is no great wonder that in 1675 the idea of having to lodge French troops horrified the women of Maestricht, "the thought alone of their approach made them tremble.55101 As late as 1697, Phelypeaux listed as cause of the depopulation in the generality of Paris "the logements and the frequent passage of soldiers through the towns and cities that are on their route.55102 Owing to the inconvenience, expense, loss of privacy, and possible danger associated with boarding soldiers, the French prized exemptions from quartering. These were many and varied. Some entire provinces, such as Auvergne, enjoyed a full exemption from quartering troops during the winter. Languedoc received a promise of exemption from Louis XIV, but the monarch still compelled the province to quarter troops in 1674 and 1685.103 Certain cities, such as Grenoble, also benefited from an exemption.104 Provinces and cities could also purchase temporary exemptions. Always short of money during wartime, the monarchy greedily accepted such bargains. Champagne bought an exemption from lodging troops in 1651 by paying an additional tax.105 The duchy of Burgundy paid the king of France to be free of all logements for a year in October 1656.106 Towns might also purchase a legal, or illegal, exemption. In 1660, Boulogne purchased an exemption for 40,000 livres, a protection that rose in price to 43,950 livres by the 1690s.107 The sale of temporary exemptions could turn into a kind of racket. Louis XIV tells of a case in which a captain of the Auvergne regiment took 300 livres from the inhabitants of Rethel to exempt them from a stay by his company. Louis broke the conniving officer; that is, the king stripped the guilty captain of his rank and banned him from the army.108 Beyond provincial and town exemptions, 98

99 100

101 102 103

104 105 106

107

AG, MR 1881, #6,12 February 1566, declaration that infantrymen and cavalrymen are forcing people to buy them extra items; AG, A*67, #68, 4 Febrauary 1641 in Landier, "Guerre, Violences, et Societe," 20, hosts forced by soldiers to pay more money to soldiers; see, as well, AG, A438, #347,1653; AG, A442, #271, 20 Avril 1654; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, #96, 25 April 1654, troops from Catalonia demanding money for ustensile and subsistance. Dijon, H 256, 24 March 1693. Nord, C 9741, and incident at Thuin, investigated by a commissaire des guerres, 18 February 1679, involving a man named Cigny who refused to let three soldiers come to eat where only two were lodged; an argument was followed by a fight; the soldiers ran away when armed townsmen arrived crying, "Kill, kill!" Jean Prechac, Uheroine mousquetaire (Paris: 1679), 63. Corvisier, Les Franpais et Varmee, 274. W i l l i a m Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France ( C a m b r i d g e : 1985), 2 8 3 85. Corvisier, Les Franpais et Varmee, 230. A G , A*i25, #253, 14 January 1651 in Landier, " G u e r r e , Violences, et Societe," 18. Cote d'Or, C 3674, 1 October 1656. This document promised a payment of 200,000 livres on 23 November 1656. 1()8 Corvisier, Les Franpais et Varme'e, 2 6 0 . L o u i s , Menioires, 1 : 2 4 8 - 4 9 .

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nobles of great status and prestige might secure privilege for their own lands. Turenne did so for his estates at Maringues, and in 1661, he won it for the viscounty of Turenne as well.109 Ordinances exempted entire classes of individuals. These included nobles, clergy, officers of sovereign courts, tax collectors, and so on. 110 The exemption for many offices stood as one of the benefits of purchasing positions for those with sufficient cash. Other more mundane functions also granted exemptions; service in the mavechaussce won this privilege, and enrolling in a garrison company might protect an individual from boarding soldiers. 111 Municipalities also granted exemptions in special circumstances, and the debate back and forth as to who should lodge soldiers signaled a municipality's fairness. Dijon serves as an interesting case. Citizens openly complained when they felt that the authorities played favorites. A petition of the 1670s read: "There are many individuals who are in a better state to provide lodging for troops than the suppliants, yet those individuals nonetheless are exempt.5'112 During the same period, a printed sheet posted on the Place des Cordeliers in Dijon complained that the army sent too great a number of soldiers to Dijon and then went on to name neighbors who had not quartered any troops in their homes, implying that they had won favors from the local authorities.113 Perhaps in response to such complaints, the intendant Bouchu announced in 1678 "Lodgments will be assigned by the mayors . . . to begin with the first inhabitant until the last, without any exception, and in proportion of what each is taxed, in such a way that those of the said inhabitants who pay twenty livres of tailles will provide ten times as much hgemcnt as those who pay only forty sols."114 But the charges of favoritism continued. Thirty years later, a man named Duplesy charged that "there is a woman at the port Guillaume who, by means of her cheating, has never lodged a soldier."115 Older citizens repeatedly petitioned for exemptions. About 1700, a 72-year-old woman asked not to lodge officers anymore, since she lacked the strength to keep rooms clean enough for them, while a 92-year-old man requested a total exemption so he could "finish his last days in tranquillity." 116 Abuses associated with bgement explain the force behind the infamous dragonnades, in which troops were quartered on Huguenots in the early 1680s and then again in 1685 with little other purpose than to bully them into conversion. As a carrot to contrast with the stick, Louis promised a two-year exemption from quartering in 1681 for those Huguenots wise enough to see the error of their ways and convert to Catholicism. Louvois bragged that "This ordinance will cause a great many conversions in places of etapes"117 109 111 113 114 116

117

Berenger, Turenne, 77 and 337. u 0 Marion, Dictionnaire, 340. Andre, Le Tellier, 367. 112 Dijon, H 218 bis. Dijon, H 218 bis, poster dated 26 December 1671. Dijon, H 218 bis, poster dated 16 April 1678. 115 Dijon, H219, December 1702. See Dijon, H 219, for these and other examples of special exemptions granted because of age or infirmity. AG, A1653, 18 March 1681, Louvois to Marillac in Rousset, Louvois, 3:444-45.

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Yet with all this said, logement should not be seen as a universal disaster. Intendants' descriptions of the era at the end of the Nine Years' War speak of money as being available because troops were quartered in a given area. "Money is abundant in Flanders because the King consumes it for the payment of the troops." 118

Winter Quarters During wars, the armies that campaigned during the summer went to ground for the winter and dispersed to cities and villages. Up to 1642, French armies took up winter quarters all across France, with the exception of Brittany, apparently with the goal of spreading the burden. 119 Later, taxation equalized the costs, and the bulk of the troops remained quartered along the frontier. In any case, armies lost their combat integrity as they marched off to quarters. Cavalry units often moved into the interior to seek more abundant forage. The munitionnaires' supply trains disbanded entirely, awaiting reassembly for the next campaign. Winter quarters began in November and ran through April. Each fall, usually in October, the crown issued a declaration concerning winter quarters, stating the principles that would govern the way the troops would be paid, fed, and quartered. 120 Historian Louis Andre ranked the regulation of 4 November 1651 as the most important of its kind during the seventeenth century, and it remained the basis for winter-quarters regulations until 1715.121 The Sun King improved military practice more by insisting on strict execution of existing regulations than by innovation. By this 1651 ordinance, troops were to go into quarters in walled towns. Troops would be paid for 150 days, infantry in fifteen prets often days each. As discussed in the previous chapter, bread would be furnished to infantry privates, corporals, and sergeants, and forage would be supplied to cavalry troopers and all officers. Town officials, mayors and aldermen, were to assign lodgings to the men by giving the marechcd de logis of the regiments slips of paper, billets, listing how many officers and men could be put in each house. The ordinance also listed exemptions from bgements (e.g., clergymen, gentlemen pursuing the profession of arms, royal officials, mayors, aldermen, and tax collectors). Captains were to see to the repair of weapons and to make sure that their companies had a full complement by spring. Officials of the central and local government, such as intendants^ commissaires desjjuerres, and mayors, were to keep control and monitor the state of the units by carrying 118 119

120

121

See several quotes in Corvisier, Les Franfais et Varme'e, 276. Contamine, Histoire inilitaire, 1:372-73. See page 368 for a very interesting map of winter quarters in 1639, showing how armies were spread all over France. Andre Eugene Navareau, Le logement et les ustensiles desgens de guerre de 1439-1789 (Poitiers: 1924), 39"Reglement fait par le Roy pour le logement," 4 November 1651 in Andre, Le Tellier, 66782. This regulation was, in fact, based on that of 1649. Navereau, Le logement^ 58.

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out a series of reviews, visits, and inspections and by maintaining meticulous records to be passed up the line to higher authorities. As earlier noted, the provisions of the 1651 ordinance were not always followed, particularly when authorities dispersed troops to villages from 1655 on. The choice of good winter quarters was a major concern. Armies exhausted on campaign had the chance to restore themselves over the winter, provided that available food, fodder, and housing met the needs of the troops. Bad winter quarters could accomplish just the opposite. In 1630, Turenne's regiment, which numbered 500 men in summer and was reinforced to 700 in October, fell to 250 by the end of the winter.122 Perhaps this experience convinced him of the importance of proper quarters for the rest of his long career. Insufficient rations raised the specters of sickness, desertion, and pillage. If all went well, however, men and horses regained their strength, equipment was repaired or replaced, and new recruits arrived to fill out the ranks in the spring. During wartime, army commanders prized winter quarters located in rich enemy territory because this allowed the army to live off enemy resources and spare the French treasury, but this will be the subject of the next chapter. Since winter quarters made such demands on local communities, they sometimes resisted the imposition of troops. The French relied on Alsace so relentlessly for winter quarters in the 1640s that the incensed peasants attacked the troops. The crown even authorized this violence when troops strayed from their assigned quarters.123 Resistance may have been precipitated by the brutal fashion in which the army seized quarters. A relative of Colbert once complained to him "Thus you see that winter quarters is established by actions of war as if one was chez the enemy."124 Later, during the personal reign of Louis XIV, French peasants did not oppose winter quarters by acts of collective violence in the way that they had before. The Ustensile A quartered soldier could expect not only a roof over his head but certain essentials supplied by the host. These essentials went by the collective name of the ustensile. The history of the ustensile provides an interesting case of the evolution of winter quarters and taxation during the gmnd siecle. As the ustensile changed in amount and nature from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, it also became a source of dispute between soldiers and civilians. Regulations guaranteeing certain objects and services to quartered soldiers go back at least to the reign of Charles VII.125 The list of promised items varied somewhat during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. An 122 124 125

Berenger, Turenne, 87. 123 Croxton, "Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe, 145. BN, Melanges Colbert, 101, #136,17 March 1658, Colbert de Terron to Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Reboul in Gabriel Hanoteau, ed. Histoire de la nation franfaise^ vol. 7, Histoire militaire et navale, pt. 1 (Paris: 1925), 264-65.

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ordinance of 1545 listed wine, vinegar, salt, and firewood as part of the ustensile to be supplied without charge to the soldier.126 When the 1617 assembly of notables complained that troops were demanding too much ustensile from townsmen, the assembly stipulated the following as legitimate: "table wear [le couveri\, fire to warm themselves and cook their meat, a bed or pallet, and a candle for each man lodged." But soldiers frequently demanded more and "ransomed the poor people.5'127 An ordinance of 1628, listed as ustensile salt, vinegar, wood, and candles; another of 1633 added table linen, bowl, and glass. Roughly speaking, the ustensile could be broken into two categories, the use of some items - a bed, bed linens, cookware, and tableware - and the outright donation of certain consumables - salt, vinegar, candles, and wood. The 1633 ordinance explicitly forbade commuting the ustensile to a money payment to soldiers, a prohibition common to many of the official pronouncements, since troops asked hosts to do this in an attempt to extort money in lieu of goods or services - anything to fill their empty purses.128 In the 1630s, the state levied an extra tax to cover the expenses of winter quarters. David Parrott has found that as early as the winter of 1637-38, the French substituted a tax, the subsistances^ for the far more arbitrary practice of making the hosts in garrison towns bear all the costs.129 For the next winter, an instruction of 24 July 1638 directed intendcmts to raise 9,600,000 livres to cover the costs of winter quarters. This amount was still higher by 1640.13° The cost of theustensile could be shared not only by taxing throughout the kingdom but also within the very city lodging troops through assessments on those who had no soldiers in their homes. This was the case in Verdun in 1654, when townsmen free of quartering were to pay into a fund that would provide 200 livres for each company of infantry and 600 livres for each one of cavalry.131 During the 1640s, much of the ustensile was transformed into a money payment, such as had been prohibited before, to be funded by a tax. Regulations like that of 18 October 1641 essentially split off those items that soldiers consumed from those that they merely used, and they offered money instead for the former. This was done in the name of equity, because the expense of boarding soldiers should not just fall on those who quartered them but should be borne by a broader community through the levying of taxes. As the regulation explained, "In order that the expense of the said wood and candles does not fall on the individuals who supply them, it will 126

127 128

129 130 131

A 1530 ordinance stipulated that there would be no charge, and that of 1545 promised wine, vinegar, salt, and some wood. Navareau, Le logement, 167. Navareau, Le logement, 167. Ordinances of 13 November 1628 and 14 February 1633 in General Baron Bardin, Dictionnaire de Varrne'e de terre ou recherches historiques sur Van et les usages militaires des anciens et modernes, 8 vols. (Paris: 1841), 8:5169. Parrott, "Administration of the French Army," 267-68. Cote d'Or, C 3673, 6 November 1638; Cote d'Or, C 3673, 12 October 1640. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, #127, Verdun agreement 24 December 1654.

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be levied on all those liable to the taille in the entire election in which the garrisons will be dependent."132 The money raised could then be passed on to the soldiers to buy their own wood and candles. The 4 December 1649 ordinance spelled out what could and could not be expected: "His Majesty intends that because soldiers receive payment of the said ustensile^ they can accept only a bed with its linens, table linens, pot and bowl, such as their hosts will have, but no wood, candle, salt, and vinegar nor any other staple whatsoever."133 This directive was repeated in somewhat briefer form by the important 1651 ordinance, which also allowed only money payment for the ustensile } M In lieu of consumables, soldiers received a payment adjusted to branch and rank - for example, 2 sols per day for an enlisted infantryman and 60 sols for a cavalry captain in the 1651 regulation.135 The 1653 and 1654 regulations incorporated language that became standard from that point on. Soldiers could only claim as ustensile the use of "le couvert^ pot, and bowl, a place by the fire and in the candlelight at their host's dwelling according to that host's convenience, without any other items being supplied, not money, wood, candle nor anything else whatsoever under the pretext of ustensile."136 There were several other veglements defining the ustensile^ but the main outlines had been set by this point. 137 An integral aspect of winter quarters, the ustensile had evolved from a payment in kind by hosts into a money payment funded by impositions on entire areas.138 It underwent two more transformations as a tax in the seventeenth century. From 1692 on, hosts were to receive a payment of 1 sol per day "in order to compensate for the furnishing of the bed and the place by the fire and by the candle." Those who actually provided the service put in their claims for reimbursement at the end of the year.139 This became a tax on the villages and generalites of those who actually lodged the men. This is an amount that Louis had discussed as early as 1666.14° The ordinance of 25 September 1695 explained that the cost oi ustensile had been so great the year before that while the king intended "during the coming winter to lodge the 132 133 134 135 136

137

138

139

140

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #31, 18 October 1641. Bardin, Dictionnaire^ 8:5169; and 4 December 1649 ordinance in Marion, Dictionnaire, 549. 4 November 1651 reglement in Andre, Le Tellier, 670. Bardin, Dictionnaire, 8:5169; 4 November 1651 reglement in Andre, Le Tellier, 668-69. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, #65, ordinance of 1 February 1654. See, as well, the ordinances of 11 July 1653 (SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, #39) and 28 November 1653 (SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, #51). Navereau, Le logement, discusses the following ordinances that followed 1654: 12 November 1658, 27 July 1666,1 November 1667, 20 October 1689, and 12 October 1701. However, there were others, those of 7 September 1666, for example. Bardin, Dictionnaire, 8:5169, says that the ordinance of 7 September 1666 abolished ustensiles in money and returned to ustensiles in kind; however, this seems in error. See SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 23, #85, 10 October 1675. See, for example, announcements of reimbursements for 1702 and 1704 in Dijon, H 219. See Cote d'Or, C 367, for some individual billets. Louis, Memoires, 1:247; Louis, Oeuvres, 2:90-91.

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infantry in his frontier cities and fortresses,. . . the inhabitants of the interior cities will pay ioo sols per day during the 150 days of winter quarters for the ustensil of each of the companies of infantry.5'141 The argument was that being saved the inconvenience of actually lodging troops, these towns should bear the burden by paying a tax. A further analysis of this ordinance reveals another change in the ustensile. By Louis's last two great wars, the ustensile tax had become a way of augmenting the sums available to refurbish the arms and equipment of units in winter quarters. This represented a major shift from the origins of the ustensile. The monarchy, having created a tax, expanded its amount and function to finance the war effort. The 1695 ordinance requires 100 sols per day. This became a standard allowance for infantry companies, to be disbursed as follows: 6 sols for the lieutenant, 4 sols for the sous-lieutenant, 1 sols for the aidemajor of the regiment, and 89 sols for the captain. This large amount for the captain was not simply an allowance to cover the personal costs of his lodgings but a contribution to what was required to ensure that his company was "complete, well armed and clothed, and to furnish tents."142 Although this amount stayed at 100 sols for an infantry company through the 1690s and into the War of the Spanish Succession, by 1710, it had risen to 133 sols per day. Cavalry and dragoon companies received more than infantry, circa 1710. But their 30 livres, or 600 sols per day, was distributed very differently. Unlike the enlisted infantrymen, who received nothing directly, common troopers received 12 sols per day if they had served in the previous campaign or were to serve in the next one. The fact that cavalrymen received only 6 sols if they had not been or would not be on campaign shows again that the ustensile for the cavalry was also a device to prepare and refit companies.143 Assessment of the ustensile tax rose to 12,741,000 livres in 1696, about 11 percent of total cost of maintaining the army.144 The ustensile remained a means both of covering the expenses of logement and of assisting with the restoration of companies during the eighteenth century.145 CLOTHING "It is not enough to have a lot of men. It is necessary that they be well formed, well dressed, and well armed.5'146 With these words, Louvois expressed his concern that the numerous soldiers of Louis XIV were useless 141

142

143 144 145 146

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 29, #51, ordinance of 25 September 1695. See earlier similar ordinances, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 27, #70, ordinance of 22 September 1691; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 28, #31, ordinance of 2 October 1692. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 29, #21, ordinance of 20 September 1694; and SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 31, #57, ordinance of 12 October 1701. Chart of allowances by ustensile circa 1710 in Mallet, Comptes rendus, 167. AN, G 7 i774, #52, "Etat des troupes que le roy a eu sur pied, et leur depense." Lee Kennett, The French Armies in the Seven Years' War (Durham, NC: 1967), 93. Louvois in Corvisier, Louvois, 109.

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without clothing and weapons. When it comes to discussing the clothing of French soldiers during the grand siecle, two questions dominate - adequacy and uniformity. First, were the troops dressed properly, by whom, and how? And second, were units dressed alike? One question is concerned with the physical nature of the soldier, the other with his psychology. On the whole, the second issue has attracted more interest than the first, although the first is more important. The notion of dressing soldiers alike, not merely dressing them sufficiently, is rich in implications. Uniformity of dress implies uniformity of action - the soldier as disciplined automaton. John Keegan has recently argued that uniforms represented the soldier's loss of individuality and labeled him as a servant - as in the livery worn by domestics.147 Keegan and others agree that uniforms fostered obedience and sharpened drill. To others, the appearance of identically clothed regiments marked the emergence of the modern army. To still others, troops dressed uniformly in the king's livery symbolized royal control of the army - that vital royal monopoly over the means of coercion so necessary for the rise of the modern state. Be this as it may, a discussion of soldiers' clothing quickly rises above a catalog of coats and shoes to one of attitudes. In the seventeenth century, several factors encouraged the French to standardize the dress of their soldiers. On the one hand, and most practically, concerns for health dictated that the men be well clothed and well shod. This, of course, did not dictate a standard cut or color to soldier's outfits, but it did require that they all be supplied with a basic set of clothing, suitable to the weather and in conformity with efficiency and contemporary styles. On the other hand, convenience allowed that when a great number of items were being made, a single pattern was followed, producing uniform cut, and perhaps even color, for the sake of cost effectiveness. Stipulating the exact specifications of clothing items ensured against cheating by officers or contractors, who might otherwise turn a profit by using inferior fabric, shortening long coats, or forgetting collars, cuffs, and buttons. Lastly, and perhaps most persuasively, there was the matter of fashion and pride. Appearance was nothing to be sneered at, as one military handbook of the 1620s proclaimed: cc2oo well clothed soldiers look better than 400 badly attired men."148 When it was clear that units simply looked better when dressed alike, an impression reinforced by the uniform dress of elite and foreign regiments, competitive vanity won over French colonels and captains to uniforms.149 Given all these factors, it is most likely, as Rousset concluded, that the 147 148

149

John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: 1993), 342. Mathieu de la Simonne, Alphabet du soldat et way eclaircissement militaire (Paris: 1623), 11011, in Babeau, La vie rnilitaire, 1:95. For comments on the force of style and vanity among the French, see Jean-Baptiste Primi Visconti, Memoires de Primi Visconti sur la cour de LouisXIV, ed. Jean-Francois Solnon (Paris: 1988), 18.

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triumph of the uniform occurred first in fact and only later in regulations for the French.150 All the talk of uniforms should not, however, blind us to the fact that the primary functions of clothing were to guard the health of the soldier and to allow him to accomplish his job of marching and fighting. Ill-clothed troops could be a liability rather than an asset. When Nani, the Venetian ambassador, described French troops during the minority of Louis XIV as being almost naked and in rags, this comes as little surprise.151 The relative ineffectiveness of French military administration and the exhaustion of state finances made such conditions predictable. It is more surprising that such conditions did not disappear after 1659. The first war in Louis's personal reign, the War of Devolution, saw Turenne write, as winter set in: "Nothing is more necessary for them than clothing; many soldiers will perish there because of not having received it soon."152 In some ways, French military administration overcame the challenges of the Dutch War better than it dealt with any other conflict during the seventeenth century, yet some of the correspondence of the period displayed real shortcomings in clothing supply. In 1673, a commissaire des guerres refused to review a company "which had 26 or 27 men as naked as a hand and the majority without shoes or socks."153 While the situation generally improved with time, even in Louis's last war, clothing supply deteriorated so badly that many of the soldiers that Villars commanded at the hard-fought battle of Malplaquet stood in bare feet. So it is safe to say that the problem of manufacturing and supplying clothing to the French army was never entirely solved during the grand siecle^ however Herculean the efforts. Changing Styles and Costs Military styles differed sharply during the century, and the lack of uniformity between men carrying different weapons multiplied the variety. At the start of the grand sikk, baggy breeches that fastened at the knee were standard for pikemen and musketeers. Pikemen sported as much armor as possible, including breast and back plates, thigh protection, and morion helmets. Musketeers were more likely to wear simply a loose coat and broad brimmed hat. Infantrymen, even officers, throughout the century wore stockings and shoes rather than boots, unless the officers were mounted. During the personal reign of Louis XIV, the most prominent piece of military clothing became the justaucorps, a coat reaching to the knees, decorated with a row of buttons down the front. The justaucorps usually lacked the turn-backs of the eighteenth century; however, it was often lined with a different color of cloth, 150 152

153

Rousset, Louvois, 1:188. 151 Nani in Andre, Le Tellier, 329. Turenne to Le Tellier, 22 December 1667, in Joseph Michaud and Jean Poujoulat, Nouvelle collection des memoires relatifs a Vhistoire de France ( P a r i s : 1836), 3:512. Corvisier, Louvois, n o .

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which showed on the large cuffs of the coat. Beneath it, soldiers wore a sleeveless vest along with shirt and knee breeches. A broad brimmed hat, often with the brim folded up in one fashion or another, protected his head. Armor disappeared for infantry. Cavalry troopers preserved their armor longer than did infantry, although they took off their helmets and breastplates eventually, except for the few heaviest units. Cavalry wore heavy tall boots and spurs, while dragoons wore shoes and gaiters to allow them to move more freely on foot. Cavalry were likely to adorn themselves more elegantly than infantry, which generally did not attain the prestige of the mounted troops. From 1610 to 1715, the cost of soldiers5 clothing rose sharply. In the early 1640s, Le Tellier was able to purchase a suit of clothing for an infantryman for from 10 livres 6 sols to 13 livres 7 sols.154 In about 1650, the cost stood at 15 livres.155 According to Victor Belhomme, the price of an infantryman's outfit climbed to 36 livres 10 sous, and by the War of the Spanish Succession, it had jumped considerably again.156 Contracts for that period peg the price at between 44 and 57, while a cavalryman's clothing cost i n livres. 157 As mentioned in the section on pay, the monarchy authorized officers to deduct money from their men's pay packets to pay the ever higher clothing bills. This practice had precedents before the personal reign of Louis XIV. In 1645, Le Tellier explained to Harcourt, CCI know that it would be very useful to resupply [habiller] the poorly clothed infantry soldiers; but as it is impossible to contract new expenses, it is necessary to try to make the commanders save from their pay what would be needed to cover their most pressing necessity."158 However, such deductions only became the rule for the French army by royal ordinance in 1666. In May of that year, Le Tellier authorized officers in the Trois-Eveches region "to retain 1 sol per day from the pay of each soldier in order to clothe him and furnish him with other necessities." 159 In December, he extended this deduction permanently to all the army. The new ordinance commanded that "captains and officers commanding companies of infantry and cavalry will retain 30 sols per month from the pay of each trooper or soldier, the said 30 sols will be employed by the said officer for clothing, shoes, and other necessities for the said troopers and soldiers and for the remount of the said cavalrymen."160 To prevent captains from pocketing the money, commissaires des guerres were to supervise the accounts every three months. This authorization was periodically renewed. 161 In 1679, the deduction for clothing was split into two portions, 4 deniers going to the captain and 8 deniers to the tresorier de lyextraordinaire des guerres}62 154 156 57 58 59

A n d r e , Le Tellier, 7211. 155 A n d r e , Le Tellier, 334. B e l h o m m e , Uarmee franpaise en 1690, 2 6 . AN, G7i778, #303; AN, G 7 i092, 15 June 1708; AN, G7i779, #133-35, 7 June 1707. Letter of 8 December 1645 in Andre, Le Tellier, 331. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 21, #139, 24 May 1666 in Andre, Le Tellier, 340-41. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 21, #166, 5 December 1666 in Andre, Le Tellier, 341-42. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 24, #49, ordinance of 28 February 1679, art. 22, stated that captains could deduct 1 sol per day "for their remount, armament, and clothing." Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:405.

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Uniforms No careful military historian would claim that French troops wore uniforms before the personal reign of Louis XIV, for the evidence points to the contrary. When large lots of clothing were distributed, the same batch was often broken up among many different units. Perhaps if a town supplied a single regiment with a refit of clothing, as in 1627-28, there might have been a moment of uniformity, simply because it was convenient to make similar outfits, but absolutely no policy set color, and it was only a matter of convenience to set the cut by means of sample coats, as in 1647. Instead of uniforms, regiments and entire armies declared their allegiance by wearing emblems or tokens stuck in the hatband or some other convenient place. For example, at the battle of faubourg Saint-Antoine in 1652, the army that Conde commanded wore straw, while the king's men wore paper. Such marks of loyalty could be quickly discarded if that loyalty became inconvenient. During the Wars of Religion of the sixteenth century, troops wore sashes of particular colors to advertise their party and their captain. 163 The wearing of a captain's colors was not uncommon; it dated back to the fifteenth century. By a directive of 9 February 1584, gendarmes and archers were to wear cloaks and hocquetons in their captain's colors, a fashion that carried over into the 1600s.164 But this was not a complete uniform. Audouin claimed that the earliest true uniform in the French service was that worn by Concini's guard during the minority of Louis XIII, 1610-17.165 The first general order regulating the uniforms of an entire field army came in 1645, but it concerned the English New Model Army, not for the French, and it stipulated only that red would be the color for all regiments. 166 According to Andre, the first standardized uniforms for French units came in 1657, when Louis gave his bodyguard blue outfits.167 But when Louis XIV took power, no directions for cut or color determined the dress of French line regiments. 168 The historian Daniel claimed that in 1661 several companies of the Gardes francaises wore gray or red uniforms; however, they followed little more than the whim of the captain. 169 Only in 1665 did at least the officers of this regiment adopt the blue justaucorps.170 At a review held at Breteuil in 1666, some regiments stood in uniform, which may have been a product of the generosity or vanity of their colonels, or these units might have been foreign, for in the line army of Louis XIV, 163 164 165 166

167 169 170

Hanoteau, Histoire de la nation franpaise, vol. 7, pt. 1, 263. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:224; AG, MR 1881, #14. Audouin, Histoire de t'administration, 2:157. J. W. Wijn, "Military Forces and Warfare, 1610-1648," in New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 4 (Cambridge: 1971), 215. A n d r e , Le Tellier et Louvois, 355. 168 R o u s s e t , Louvois, 1:185. Daniel in Andre, Le Tellier, 340. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 21, #101,16 January 1665. This ordinance explicitly states only what officers were to wear; however, Rousset, 1:185-86, Andre, Le Tellier et Louvois, 355, and Corvisier, Louvois, n o , interpret this as meaning the men as well.

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foreign regiments in French pay led the march toward uniformity.171 Capitulations, or contracts, with such foreign units often stipulated that the men be dressed the same. Such was the case in the 1672 capitulation, which directed that the colonel, Ximenes, "will have all the sergeants and soldiers of the said regiment dressed in the same manner."172 Yet when Louvois concerned himself with native French regiments, there seemed no interest in enforcing uniform attire. Although a 1665 regulation enforced uniform clothing on the mounted troops of the maison^ in his 1668 instructions to Martinet, the war minister cautioned that "It is not at all necessary to ask officers to have their clothing all the same nor made at the same time .. . ; but you must not allow, no matter what, that the soldiers be badly shod or badly dressed, nor that the arms not be in a state to serve, either by the caliber of their muskets or by their quality.55173 Nonetheless, certain standard histories inform their readers, incorrectly, that the infantry received uniforms in 1670 or shortly thereafter.174 The period of the Dutch War was important for the evolution of uniforms, but it did not complete its path during that conflict.175 Many pieces of evidence demonstrate that, by and large, French soldiers were not in uniform early in the Dutch War. An intendant proposed selling the clothing of dead soldiers from the hospital to a company in the Regiment d'Orleans "which has need of them.55176 A commander of the chateau of Angers suggested that "soldiers would have more trouble in deserting if they were all dressed in the same manner, because one could recognize them everywhere 171

A n d r e , Le Tellier et Louvois, 355.

172

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 22, #174, 11 March 1672. See also the 1668 contract of the Royal Rousillion, a unit composed of men from Catalonia, Rousillon, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. AG, A*2i9, #238, 15 October 1668. When Louvois reviewed the German regiment of Alsace in 1669, they were "all dressed in a single fashion," and at a review a few days later, other Germans in the Furstenburg regiment were "all dressed in blue, faced with yellow." AG, A1241, 19 and 24 May 1669, in Rousset, Louvois, 1:186. Still, not every capitulation stipulated uniforms. See, for a Berne regiment, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 22, #143,14 August 1671, and for one from Mulhaus, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 22, #143, 13 October 1671, neither of which do. Directions for raising troops in Savoy allow that men will be dressed "either in red or in blue, each to his own inclination." AG, AX279, 22 October 1672, instruction to Servient. AG, Ax22i, 20 December 1668, instructions to Martinet by Louvois in Rousset, 1:208. See, for example, Louis Dussieux, VArmee en France, 3 vols. (Versailles: 1884), 2:182-83; even Corvisier, who should know better, states flatly: "During the Dutch war, each unit had its uniform, at least for the men in the ranks." Corvisier, Louvois, 191. He seems to retract this in his part of Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:406. Pichat, in his history of the French army in 1674 states that only foreign regiments were to be dressed uniformly. H . Pichat, "Les armees de Louis XIV et 1674," Revue d'histoire de Varmee, 1910, 21. AG, AX294, #312, 13 September 1672. Interestingly, from the 1690s, the clothes of a dead soldier would be returned to his captain, implying that the troops may have been in uniform, so the clothes would be appropriate only for a particular regiment. Records from 1691 to 1728 in Babeau, La vie militaire, 1:214.

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more easily.55177 Would either request have been made if uniforms had been issued and soldiers of one regiment been required to dress identically? Quite to the contrary, in 1673, Louvois wrote to Luxembourg with exactly the opposite in mind, stressing that it was not necessary to dress the troops "in new clothes for this year, nor all in the same fashion.55178 Yet, apparently, steps were taken toward uniformity, for just as the commander at Angers predicted, it was possible to arrest deserters by spotting their uniforms. This happened to a deserter from the Royal Roussillon, when he was seen wearing items that the authority reported "I believe similar to those that had been given recruits of that regiment I had seen at Binche.55179 The interwar period moved the process along. Correspondence concerning clothing in the early 1680s did not stress uniforms for the rank and file and only insisted on clothing of the same color for officers. In 1682, Louvois wrote concerning infantry that "His Majesty desires only that all the officers of the same regiment be dressed in the same color.55180 A 1683 directive to an inspector of cavalry went no further: "The intention of the king is that you inform the cavalry which is under your orders that His Majesty desires that between now and the next spring, the officers of each regiment be dressed uniformly.55181 But an ordinance of 1685 prescribed particular colors for regiments in French service: blue for the Gardes fran^aises and the royal regiments, red for the Swiss, and gray-white for regular French infantry.182 Regulations instructing authorities concerning raising the milice for the Nine Years5 War explicitly stated that uniform dress was not an issue. While ordinances commanded that each milicien receive a hat, justaucorps^ breeches, stockings, and good shoes, they carried the proviso that miliciens need not be bound "to any uniformity of clothing or color of coat, stockings, or hat.55183 Because miliciens fought in their own regiments during that war, it means that all these regiments explicitly had no uniform. Yet this reluctance to impose uniforms on miliciens does not mean that uniforms were not becoming nearly universal for regular regiments in the Nine Years5 War.184 A regulation of 1690 prescribed uniforms for 116 regiments of French cavalry; 88 wore gray with red reverses, while 14 royal or princely regiments wore blue coats. 185 One surprising piece of evidence is that in this war, even the teamsters of the supply train seemed to have adopted 177

AG, AX279, #124, 9 October 1672. AG, A*3i5, 8 April 1673, in Rousset, Louvois, 1:187. 179 AG, AX295, 3 October 1672, letter from Le Vacher. 180 Louvois to d'Alauzier, 11 May 1682, in Rousset, Louvois, 3:29411. 181 Rousset, Louvois, 3:29511. 182 Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:406. 183 SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 26, #18, 29 November 1688. A later regulation stipulated the fabric but not the cut or color of milice uniforms. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 26, #24, 3 January 1689. 184 Certainly Belhomme believes that uniforms had become standard by 1690. Belhomme, Varmee franpaise en 1690, 18-19. 185 Louis Susane, Histoire de la cavaleriefranpaise,3 vols. (Paris: 1874), 1:137-38.

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standardized military attire. Nodot reported that since du Pille's efforts in 1689, teamsters were wearing uniforms supplied by the munitionnaires^ with the cost being deducted from the teamsters5 pay. Nodot explains this switch to uniform style: "Still another advantage is that all this uniform clothing makes a handsome sight, making all the wagon trains and brigades of mules look the same" with the exception that "the facings and cuffs of the brigades were of different colors.35186 There are also other insights. An ordinance of 1693 stipulated that officers must dress their valets different from their soldiers, implying that the soldiers wore recognizable clothing.187 In addition, just as in the case of the unfortunate deserter from Royal Roussillion, deserters could again be spotted because of their uniforms. In a particularly bizarre case, a woman dressed as a male soldier in 1696 was arrested because she was wearing much of the uniform of the Regiment du Biez when she tried to enroll in another.188 Although the army would seem to have adopted uniforms for regular regiments during the Nine Years5 War, thefirstregulation detailing the fabric, color, and cut of uniforms in detail appeared in 1704.189 So the most reasonable position to take is that uniforms came into use gradually from the Dutch War to the end of the seventeenth century. In fact, by the close of this era, Vauban wanted not only uniforms, but standardized emblems of rank. He proposed red uniforms with a buff vest withfleursde Us on the left breast indicating rank: blue for a private soldier, blue with silver borders for a sergeant, silver with gold border for a lieutenant, and gold for a captain.190 Clothing Manufacture Clothing manufacture for the troops during the first half of thcjjrand siecle relied on three sources. Colonels and captains responsible for outfitting their own men bought items singly or in lots. While this practice followed from regulations and the nature of the military system itself, the small scale of these purchases means that little record of them remains. However, documents bear witness to occasions when the monarchy supplied large quantities of clothing directly to the army. This seems to have been connected not with the initial outfitting of a unit but with resupply of men already suffering in the field. These items were produced either by entrepreneurs who contracted with the monarchy or by French cities upon which quotas were imposed by the monarchy as a kind of tax. 186 187

188

189

190

Francis Nodot, Le munitionnaire des armees de France (Paris: 1697), 18, 19. 14 February 1693 ordinance in Ordonnances militaires du roy de France reduites en practique, et appliquees au detail du service, 2 vols. (Luxembourg: 1734-35), 1:203. AG, MR 1785, #6, 53-55. See John A. Lynn, "The Strange Case of the Maiden Soldier of Picardy," MHQ, The Quarterly Journal of Military History, spring 1990, 54-56. Regulation of 26 May 1704, Victor Belhomme, Histoire de Vinfanterie en France, 5 vols. (Paris: 1893-1902), 2:396-97. Rochas d'Aiglun, Vauban, 1:288-89, and 294-95.

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The practice of demanding clothing as tribute from French cities was employed repeatedly. The siege of La Rochelle, 1627-28, precipitated such demands, when Louis XIII required Paris to provide 2,500 complete outfits for the king's guards, while he assigned the task of clothing other regiments to other cities.191 The monarchy turned to private contractors in the 1630s and into the 1640s, as indicated by correspondence, such as Sublet's order to buy 6,000 pairs of shoes for the army in Germany.192 But as the treasury ran dry in 1647 and 1648, the royal government turned to the cities of the kingdom. Once again, letters went out to local authorities. In 1647, Paris was to supply 1,600 suits of clothing.193 At this time, Le Tellier sent a sample coat to the intendants^ not to create a true uniform but to provide a pattern that would keep the clothing supplied within a general standard: CCI send you apourpoint or justaucorps that has been made here to serve as a model for all those that will be furnished by the principal towns of the kingdom."194 This letter also stipulated that the clothing be made in three sizes, y4 small, r/4 large, and the rest regular. Dependence on the towns to provide the king's army with clothes became so common that in 1649, the monarchy sent out form letters with blanks to be filled in for the town's name and the number of outfits it was to supply.195 Such royal commands were not always obeyed; witness Le Tellier's complaints concerning Provins and Abbeville in 1650.196 The imposition of quotas of clothing remained an alternate form of taxation on French towns until the end of the war with Spain.197 Andre believes that during the war with Spain, Le Tellier centralized the manufacture of uniforms in Paris in order that he could supervise the production of clothing. Thus, as time went on, he always demanded that Paris 191

192

193 194 195 196 197

Letters of 25 October and 7 November 1627 addressed the officials of Paris. Jules Caillet, De Vadminstration en France sous le ministere du Cardinal de Richelieu (Paris: 1857), 366 and 367n; Thomas, Droit romain des requistions militarires et du bgement des gens de guerre, 182-83. See also the 10 December ordinance ordering Paris to provide 2,500 habits, while similar demands were made of other "villes de nostre royaurne" SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 13, #117. See Francois Duval Fontenay-Mareuil, Memoires, in Joseph Michaud and Jean Poujoulat, eds., Nouvelle collection des memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de France, vol. 5 (Paris: 1837), 197, for a statement that each town had to supply one regiment. AN, Kii4 A , dos. 1, fol. 3 in Orest Ranum, Richelieu and the Councillors of Louis XIII (Oxford: 1963), 101. See, as well, the following: order issued 4 April 1630 to Allegre, general of the king's army in Italy, to deliver 5,075 habits to thirteen regiments of infantry in Susane, Infanterie, 1:185-86: Le Tellier's actions to contract with entrepreneurs to make clothes and shoes for the army in Italy in 1641, Andre, Le Tellier, 72-73; and SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 17, #67, letter of king to Harcourt, 22 December 1645, to distribute 3,000 suits of clothing and 3,000 pairs of shoes to be distributed to each regiment in proportion to its numbers, just to go to those who needed them. A n d r e , Le Tellier, 334 a n d 336-37. Letter of 28 October 1647 in Andre, Le Tellier, 339. 15 D e c e m b e r 1649, S H A T , Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #55. 13 February 1650 letter from L e Tellier t o Mazarin in A n d r e , Le Tellier, 337-38. See A n d r e , Le Tellier, 338n.

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supply clothing, but he encouraged other cities just to give money.198 This may explain Andre's conclusion that Le Tellier was first to work seriously on the issue of clothing.199 What Andre means by this last claim is hard to tell; certainly Le Tellier was not the first to care that French soldiers be better clothed, and his reliance on French towns as a source of supply had its precedents long before Le Tellier came to office. If requisition of clothing from major towns was the dominant manner in which the state supplied clothing directly to its troops during the war with SjSain, the monarchy relied primarily upon contractors during the personal reign of Louis XIV. The excellent financial records preserved in the Archives Nationales for the period 1700-14 provide insights into the supply system in this last of Louis's great wars.200 They demonstrate just how large the demands on contractors were - as many as 13,000 outfits of clothing or 18,000 pairs of shoes from a single entrepreneur.201 The correspondence also shows that production was not centralized in Paris, since large quantities of clothing were produced in Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and elsewhere.202 Lastly, much of the correspondence came in the form of petitions, placets, requesting payment, demonstrating that the government was usually in arrears.203 The demands sent by Gairaud to the government in Paris illustrate these points. Gairaud, a contractor from Lyon, petitioned the government in December 1704, requesting payment for 15,000 pairs of shoes for the armies in Spain and 3,000 for the army of duke de La Feuillade in Italy. He specifically wanted payment in money or in some form that could be quickly cashed out, not in assignations on future revenues that could take eight or nine months to be realized, such as had been paid to other contractors.204 198

199 200

201

202

203

204

See Andre, Le Tellier, 339. See mention of a second shipment of clothing and a request to expedite the shipment of 1,000 pairs of shoes from Paris for Irish troops. Mazarin, Lettres, 6:79-80, Mazarin to Fouquet, 10 November 1653. Andre, Le Tellier, 330. AN, G 7 1774-1788 contains correspondence, memoirs, and accounts of the tresoriersgenemux of the extraordinaires des guerres and other tresoriers des guerres, 1695-1715. For an extensive catalog of this series, see Claudine Fages, "Le service de la guerre sous Louis XIV de 16991715" (Paris: 1974). This hefty and immensely useful manuscript volume can be found in the Salle des inventaires at the AN. The most complete set of records concerns the year 1704 in G 7 1776 and G 7 1777. A detailed contract with Leleu and Lelarge stipulated the production of 12,449 outfits for 950,379 livres. 15 June 1708, AN, G 7 io92. Giraud at Lyon contracted for 18,000 pairs of shoes. AN, G7i776, #256-57. Justo van de Corbernt at Toulouse to be paid 100,000 ecus for 6,500 habits for the army in Spain. AN, G7i779, #133-35, 7 June 1707. As well as the examples that follow in the text, see Cournit and G e n t h o n complaining that they were o w e d 266,122 livres 11 sols for the clothing of 6,000 rniliciens, A N , G 7 i779, #205, 20 M a y 1707; the petitions from t h e master shoemakers of Bordeaux demanding money o w e d for 1707-9 in A N , G 7 i093 , and A N , G 7 i o 9 4 ; Leleu and Lelarge billing 634,381 livres for clothing supplied o n 7 October 1708 and submitting the same bill 29 January 1709, A N , G 7 io93A N , G 7 i776, #256-57. See, as well, #331 and #419 o n shoe transport and payment.

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Gairaud followed this petition with another in January 1705, again asking to be paid and wanting to know if he should continue producing shoes, since nearly half of the shoes ordered had yet to be made, and, apparently, he had not been paid.205 Clothing contractors were businessmen with businessmen's concerns. When Astruc complained that he had been paid only 143,640 livres of the 443,640 livres owed for 10,000 outfits for the army in Italy, he reminded the minister of war that he needed the money "to maintain his credit." There was also a human side to Astruc's need for payment, since, cchis manufacture [is] composed of 2,500 families, that he is obliged to support every day.5'206 Given the large amounts of clothing required by the army, it is not surprising that military needs had great influence on the cloth and leather trades. Reports from intendcmts at the close of the Nine Years3 War testify to this impact. From Languedoc, the intendcmt stated that the wool trade increased greatly during times of war and that the best fabric produced in the area went into clothing for the troops.207 Production at Chateauroux was "very much employed during the war. All that was made there was for the use of troopers and soldiers."208 Extravagant Dress by Officers Considering the luxury and elegance of Louis's court, it comes as little surprise that officers displayed an expensive taste for extravagance in their own clothing, particularly in the matter of silver and gold lace trimming. A desire to stem such wasteful costs supplied some of the impetus behind clothing regulations. An ordinance of 1672 preached: "One of the things that contributes the most to the ruin of the king's officers is the luxury and the sumptuousness of their clothes." It forbade them to wear gold and silver on their own attire or on their saddle clothes.209 When Louvois instructed the inspector Montbron to require that the officers of each cavalry regiment dress in a similar fashion, he insisted "that their dress be regulated in a manner that it will cause them the least possible expense."210 Concern for extravagance went beyond the officers. One reason to avoid dressing all the men in a more presentable or uniform manner was a need to hold down the officers' costs. A desire to keep them from spending too much for needless display comes out in Louvois's instructions vis-a-vis a trip that Louis took to inspect troops in the north of France: "The king does not desire that [the officers] hand out decorative ribbons or other things of this nature, nor even that they provide [new] clothing to their soldiers all at 205

A N , G 7 i 7 7 7 , #137-38. 206 A N , G 7 i 7 7 8 , #303, 1706. Corvisier, Les Franpais, 207. 208 Memoire for Berry in Corvisier, Les Franpais, 207. 209 SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 22, #176, 25 March 1672. 210 AG, A ! 694,i7 June 1683, Louvois to Montbron, in Rousset, Louvois, 3:29511. 207

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once.5'211 When proposals were made to adorn the clothing of sergeants and common soldiers with luxurious touches, Louvois fumed: "It is ridiculous to think of giving velvet facings [pavements] to sergeants, as well as gloves and lace cravats."212 He also ordered those officers who "believe they please His Majesty by putting gold or silver braid on the clothes of their sergeants and soldiers" to cease.213 T H E SUPPLY OF W E A P O N S : MUSKETS AND FUSILS A soldier was not a soldier without the tools of war. French troops carried both edged weapons - swords and pikes in particular - and firearms, which included the musket, already a basic weapon at the start of the century, and the fusil, which became the standard firearm by 1700. This chapter discusses the supply of these basic arms rather than their technology and use. Even when pay never arrived or clothing fell into rags, weapons reached French troops. Of course, weapons were relatively durable and did not wear out with the rapidity of clothing, so troops once provided with them were in less need of resupply. But more to the point, weapons were absolutely essential to the business of war. The army at Malplaquet may have been bootless and hungry, but they had fusils and gunpowder. Before the personal reign of Louis XIV, the army passed on the primary responsibility for the purchase of weapons to the captains. For example, in 1644, captains in the Army of Catalonia received 720 livres to enroll and equip thirty new infantry recruits.214 This worked out to 24 livres for each recruit, a sum large enough to purchase weapons for the musketeers. At this time, a musket cost about 6 livres, although the price seems to have fluctuated from year to year and place to place.215 Officers faced with the duty of arms supply did as they saw fit. When a young officer, Turenne even requested that his mother send him fifty pairs of pistols from Sedan, an arms manufacturing center, for his men.216 Captains supplied weapons both to new troops 211 212 213 214 215

216

Louvois in Andre, Le Tellier et Louvois, 354. Louvois to d'Alauzier, 23 November 1682, in Rousset, Louvois, 3:294. Louvois to d'Alauzier, n May 1682, in Rousset, Louvois, 3:294^ "Estat des troupes de l'armee de Catalogne," 12 December 1644, in Andre, Le Tellier, 351. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #129, 29 March 1644, in Andre, Le Tellier, 346m, quoted musket prices at 6 livres 10 sols; BN, f. fr. 4200, fol. 62V.-63, a letter of 10 April 1645, put the cost at only 6 livres; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #12, 30 January 1649, in Andre, Le Tellier, 346, stated that muskets with bandoliers from Charleville, Mezieres, and Liege cost more than 8 livres, but those from Holland cost over 10 livres. Mazarin claimed that he bought muskets with bandoliers for as little as 4 livres 10 sols. Mazarin in Andre, Le Tellier, 346. In 1672, a musket still cost 6 livres and the bandolier an additional 2 livres. Louis, Oeuvres, 3:118-19. By the 1680s, a musket could cost 9 livres and the more sophistocated fusil 14 livres. Corvisier, Louvois, 365. Berenger, Turenne, 156.

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l8l

and to veterans who needed replacement weapons, the cost of which was then deducted from their pay.217 Still, the state might intervene in the process of providing original equipment or resupply. In 1650, Le Tellier demanded 300 muskets from Abbeville, just as they were demanding clothes from large towns; in fact, Abbeville was also to supply 500 pairs of shoes.218 The state could also purchase directly from manufacturers, as when Mazarin ordered the purchase of 4,000 muskets with bandoleers in Lyon, if they could be had for 5 livres each, and 1,000 pairs of pistols at 12 livres each.219 When the state shipped arms to its troops, however, it apparently charged them to the captains' accounts, who then could be expected to pass the price on to their men.220 Captains clearly cut corners to save money, so a series of ordinances (164359) demanded compliance with the weapons' standards. Of all possible penalties, Le Tellier discovered that monetary fines worked best.221 The 1670 instruction on inspections reiterated that if weapons did not meet inspection, it was the captain's job to replace them out of pocket.222 Once he was truly in control and peace had returned, Louis XIV tried to standardize French shoulder arms. A16 November 1666 ordinance on weapons complained that most of the muskets in the magazines were of diverse calibers and often of too small a bore for the ammunition distributed to the troops; therefore, the ordinance forbade musket barrels to be of a smaller caliber than would accommodate balls weighing 0.8 ounce, or twenty to the pound. Interestingly enough, this ordinance controlled not only the captains, who would surfer penalties if they gave weapons of smaller caliber to their men, but it also fined workers who made weapons and merchants who sold them for 50 livres. Should these civilians continue to transgress after a first offense, they fell liable to corporal punishment.223 Another directive of 1670 set barrel length at 3 feet 7 inches, from the touch hole to the muzzle.224 The next year an ordinance confirmed the new caliber and ordered that all barrels be test fired, or proved, before being sold.225 Standardization took some time to take effect, as evidenced by the fact that magazines continued to store other calibers. A 1667 report from the magazine at Arras stated that it had two calibers of balls, twenty-four to the pound and thirty-three to the pound.226 Still, in 1670, an ordinance instructed "commissaires desguerres to examine and to then refuse [weapons], if the arms 217 218 219 220 222 223 224 225 226

A n d r e , Le Tellier, 351. Le Tellier to Mazarin, 13 February 1650, in Andre, Le Tellier, 338. 15 September 1653 letter from Mazarin to Colbert du Terron, in Mazarin, Lettres, 6:28-29. A n d r e , Le Tellier, 351-52. 221 A n d r e , Le Tellier, 351-52. AG, MR 1881, #43, 6 February 1670 instruction. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 21, #164. Andre, Le Tellier, 35061. 6 February 1670 ordinance in Ordonnances militaires, 1:172-73. 28 November 1667 ordinance in Ordonnances militaires, 1:172-73. A G , A*2O9, #138, 18 A u g u s t 1667 etat. I t also contained 9,808 grenades a n d 2,828 cannonballs.

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of the said soldiers are of a length or caliber below regulation size . . . and replace them at the expense of the captain.5'227 There is a temptation to see the ordinances of 1666-70 as solving the problem and enforcing regularity, but problems persisted into the Dutch War, when one administrator complained of a company "being only peasants without swords and having only bad fusils of different lengths and of different calibers that the balls supplied will not serve.35228 During the last two wars of Louis XIV, arms were supplied to the army by major administrators/entrepreneurs who paralleled the great munitionnaires. A shift in financing the purchase of arms came in 1688. Before that date, the masse, the i-sol-per-day deduction from a soldier's pay, contributed to the cost of both his clothes and arms, but from 1688 on, it no longer paid for weaponry.229 This increased the amount of money available for clothing, and it signaled that the state rather than the captain would take over direct supply of arms to the soldier, or at least to recruits. By this point, the king furnished arms, at his cost, to all recruits infieldbattalions - that is, those who actually went on campaign - and to garrison battalions involved in a siege.230 Arsenals at Saint-Etienne and Charleville provided the bulk of small arms production; in the last decade of the seventeenth century, no less than 600,000 fusils were manufactured there.231 Other arms workshops around France contributed, and foreign production was also enlisted. Powder consumption was also great, reaching 1,500,000 per year in the 1690s.232 Again, the French tapped foreign production as well under Louis XIV; large amounts of powder and ball for French troops during the Dutch War had even been bought in Amsterdam in preparation for the conflict!233 The fate of the arms entrepreneur could be an unhappy one, since the monarchy became steadily worse at paying its bills. The case of the administrator and entrepreneur Maximilien Titon during the War of the Spanish Succession reveals the problem. During the Nine Years5 War, Titon managed the production of arms, including rifled carbines, for the king, and during the next war, he held the post of directeur general du magazin royal de la Bastille, in which he managed large-scale arms production in France.234 He supplied great numbers of fusils to the army; between 1 December 1703 and 15 March 1704, winter quarters, he supplied 31,947 fusils and requested to purchase another 20,000 lock mechanisms from manufacturers in Liege and Luxembourg to produce more weapons.235 By then he had been paid 1,745,000 livres.236 But the government wanted him to make another 60,000 fusils, 30,000 bayonets, and 30,000 swords for which it promised to pay another 227 228 230 232 233 234 235

AG, MR 1881, #43, 6 February 1670 instruction. A G , A*295, # 2 2 0 , 2 6 O c t o b e r 1672. 229 C o n t a m i n e , Histoire fnilitaire, 1:405. B e l h o m m e , Uarme'e franpaise en 1690, 17. 231 C o n t a m i n e , Histoire rnilitaire, 1:411-12. Contamine, Histoire militaire, 1:411-12. Baxter, William III, 60; Corvisier, Louvois, 209. A G , A*858, 14 O c t o b e r 1689, in Rousset, 3:332m. 236 A N , G 7 i 7 7 6 , # 4 6 8 , 17 M a r c h 1704. A N , G 7 i777, #258, 19 January 1704.

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1,000,000 livres.237 He claimed that he was delivering 8,500 fusils per month in 1704. Records show that Titon did receive at least 590,000 livres, from mid-January through mid-September 1704, but by December, he complained that he was owed 1,200,000 livres more, and that if he was not paid, everything would come to a halt.238 Later letters begged repeatedly for payment. By July 1706, he claimed that he was owed 1,733,883 livres 15 sols, and that if he was not paid, he could not pay his own workers. 239 Production at SaintEtienne was apparently most at risk, since the workers would either have to stop or to produce weapons of low quality: "the workers . . . will cease their work, and some of them already find themselves reduced to misery and to begging; all the manufacture will fall into great disorder." 240 Titon received some money in 1706, apparently three assignments totaling 1,038,000 livres, but in 1707, he was still appealing for 1,555,560 livres 16 sols for arms furnished in 1706.241 Titon would go bankrupt at least once in his career.242 As the problems that beset Titon illustrate once again, the larger armies of the grand siecle simply exceeded the state's capacity to provide for them. A tension existed between military growth and supply; obviously, an army of 340,000 required more than did an army of 60,000. Ultimately, the demands for essential supplies and services became so staggering that to supply them adequately would have required resources greater than the state ever commanded. The need to mobilize necessary resources led the Bourbons to expand the power and staff of central administration, but financial necessity also forced French kings to preserve older practices that did not harmonize with efficiency, such as the sale of offices and the preservation of entrepreneurial rather than direct state supply. Military pressures pushed in opposite directions. And ultimately, to fill the gap between military need and state capacity, armies in the field requisitioned food, materiel, and money on the spot, with or without the blessing and supervision of royal authority. At times, this amounted to little more than pillage, and at times, it was carried out with the regularity of normal taxation. That is the subject of the next chapter. 237

238

AN, G7i776, #474. The order also included 2,400 "armements de cavalerie," which were probably pistols. AN, G7i776, #216, accounts 30 August-20 September 1704; AN, G7i776, #245, 7 December 1704.

239

240 241

A N , G 7 i778, #163, 27 July 1706; A G , G 7 i778, # 1 7 9 - 8 7 , July a n d A u g u s t 1706. See, as well, his pleas a year earlier, A N , G 7 i777, #172, 30 July 1705. AG, G7i778, #194-95, 21 August 1706 and 5 September. A G , G 7 i 7 7 9 , #119.

242

C o n t a m i n e , Histoire

militaire,

1:539.

The Tax of Violence and Contributions

O

N a June day in 1649, the Regiment de Conti stood before the gates of Thorigny, near Fontainebleau. After having asked for quarters and gained admittance, these French troops went on a twelve-day rampage. Witnesses testified how the soldiers "used extraordinary violence, having beaten and ransomed the inhabitants, pillaged and burned their furnishings . . . cut down their fruit trees . . . [and] eaten and scattered their flocks.5'1 What could explain such barbarity? It did not stem solely from the depravity of the troops but erupted from something more basic: These soldiers - as with many of their peers - robbed and pillaged because the state that employed them lacked the resources to maintain them. Indeed, in its large army, the Bourbon monarchy had created a monster that it could neither feed nor control; the growth of French armed forces simply outstripped government capacity. Greater forces demanded greater quantities of funds, food, and fodder, which the existing state apparatus scrambled to mobilize, but despite its efforts, the state proved incapable of satisfying the army's appetite, particularly during the first period of expansion, 1635-59. In order to make up the shortfall between what the battalions received directly from the government and what the troops needed to survive, the army turned on the civil populations around them. The result was violent abuse, strategic frustration, andfiscalcollapse, which eventually compelled the French government to refashion itself so as to support its forces. Therefore, in a real sense, such agonies of war became the birth pangs of the modern state. While recent scholarship on state formation in early modern Europe has recognized this link between the pressures of war and emergence of absolutism, more needs to be said concerning the character and influence of the dangerous chasm that separated army need from state capacity. 1

"Requete des habitans du bourg de Thorigny, selection de Sens," from an order of 10 February 1650 in Peter Jonathan Berger, "Military and Financial Government in France, 16481661," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979, 94. 184

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During the period of change and development, the army itself bridged the gap between demand and supply. Had it not, the Bourbons would have been unable to field such large forces. The army supplied itself through two distinct forms of violent requisition, the subjects of this chapter. First, military units large and small simply took what they wanted when the state did not provide it; in short, they turned to pillage, which the French called mademoiselle picoree. This brutal seizure of goods by Bourbon troops within the borders of France can best be labeled the "Tax of Violence," for reasons that will become apparent. This cruel practice proved costly, in military, political, and moral terms; therefore, Louis XIV and the marquis de Louvois took steps to suppress these excesses within France, and, to a large extent, outside France as well. Second, undisciplined and inefficient pillage, the fruits of which went directly to marauding soldiers, was replaced by a far more orderly and effective practice, the levying of "contributions" by the government itself. As opposed to the Tax of Violence, contributions were raised outside French borders, administered by civil agents, and benefited the royal war effort rather than particular units. The ability of the monarchy to eliminate the Tax of Violence illustrates that the crown and its agents succeeded in improving military discipline, administration, and supply. These improvements were linked closely to increased royal authority, coupled with growing centralization and bureaucratization, in short with absolutism. Much of this book has stressed the evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, nature of change; nonetheless, two facts affirm the reality of fundamental innovations: the growth of the army and the elimination of the Tax of Violence. However, at the same time that the latter verifies substantial change, the need for contributions demonstrates that the monarchy had not been transformed enough to truly afford its gargantuan army. The exhaustion of the French state reflected by the decline in real troop strength during the War of the Spanish Succession testifies to the continued limitations on state power rather than to a full realization of monarchical absolutism. TAX O F V I O L E N C E Taxes - the French absolutist state created, collected, and consumed them in greater quantity than its predecessors. Therein lay much of its strength. Taxes brought power because taxes bought soldiers. Yet regular taxation fell short of maintaining the huge new armies. Before 1659, it was supplemented by the violent confiscation of wealth, primarily within French borders, on an ad hoc basis - the Tax of Violence. The prefaces of French military ordinances before 1659 speak grimly, but vaguely, of menacing infractions - "all sorts of ravages and disorders"2 and 2

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, 22 June 1652, #162.

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"diverse disorders, excesses, and violences.5'3 The frequency of official directives commanding soldiers "to demand nothing nor to mistreat their hosts" when they were quartered bears witness to the fact that soldiers were, indeed, extorting money and abusing people.4 St. Vincent de Paul lamented in 1652 that "Everywhere the armies have passed, they have committed sacrileges, thefts and impieties."5 Troops in the pay of the Bourbons were as rapacious as those who served Wallenstein.6 The brutal requisition that constituted the Tax of Violence becomes most obvious when one examines the way in which troops were housed and fed in the seventeenth century. When considering problems raised by quartering and etapes, it may be useful to segregate this violence into two categories, one that involved serious infractions of the rules but still remained within the broad outlines of the directives and another that cast all regulation and restraint aside. Much of the lesser violence occurred while troops were on the march, when their need was great and there was less chance for supervision or punishment. When traveling from place to place, soldiers could become highwaymen. On etapes^ soldiers might not follow the road prescribed, or they might refuse lodgings assigned to them and simply occupy those that pleased them.7 Soldiers en route to a new station might cut grain on their way.8 Although troops quartered on a household were entitled to a bed to sleep the night, a place to cook their meal, and candles to light the way, they often demanded more. Or they might demand money in lieu of services. All too often they simply extorted sums from their hosts. Major cases of indiscipline and violence came completely outside the realm of the law, as French troops pillaged friendly towns as if they were foreign bastions. While campaigning against the Norman capital of Rouen, Harcourt's royal army based itself at Neubourg for twelve days "and caused the total ruin of the inhabitants . . . . [The army] burned more than 200 buildings besides losses of animals, wheat, and other grains such that the majority of the inhabitants were forced to abandon the area and are reduced to begging." Isolated villages were even more exposed to horrid pillage. In 1642, the 3 4

5

6

7 8

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, 20 April 1655, #151. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 14, 1636, #99. See, for example, SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, 12 January 1642, #38; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, 25 May 1651, #106; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, 22 June 1652, #162; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, 25 April 1654, #96; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 19, 6 November 1654, #125; SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 20, 20 February 1657, #7. After 1660, these colorful, self-condemning ordinances no longer appear with such frequency. St. Vincent De Paul in Louis Andre, Michel Le Tellier et ^organisation de Varmee monarchique (Paris: 1906), 579-80. Patrick Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe en France, 1635-1659," doctorat de troisieme cycle, dissertation, Universite de Paris IV: 1978, argues that the French were probably less rapacious than other contemporary armies. See examples in Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe," 29 and 30. See SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, 22 June 1652, #162.

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lord of one such small community complained that local troops had "taken the inhabitants who remained there, put them in deep holes, and left them there to starve in order to make them pay ransom . . . ." Ransom of one kind or another was a disturbingly convenient way of extorting funds, while torture bludgeoned householders into revealing money stashed on their property.9 A more lurid case involved the larger town of Sancoins, in the Bourbonnais. In 1650, some 3,000 troops approached and without the proper authorization of etapes demanded entry. The townsmen denied the troops, but the soldiers convinced a few traitors to let them in at one gate. The troops then "lived as they pleased, raping, pillaging, and robbing." They "compelled the inhabitants to put together a sum of four thousand livres" and stole horses. They reserved a particular brutal treatment for the "women from whom they took away nursing children and locked these infants in rooms for twentyfour hours in order to force the women to become the soldiers' concubines or to buy their babies back with money rather than to see them die miserably."10 Violence bred violence; attack bred reprisal. The brutality of soldiers sparked resistance; mostly local, it would not appear in the great accounts of civil disruption. In his engravings, "Les miseres et les maleurs de la guerre," Jacques Callot left a vivid record of the violence committed by and to soldiers during the first half of the seventeenth century. His most famous piece depicts the pillaging of a farmhouse, attended by torture, murder, and rape. But he follows this with a scene of peasants5 revenge with the following caption "After the soldiers have committed much devastation,finallythe peasants, whom they have treated as enemies, await them in a secluded place and by surprise. . . put them to death." Peasants smash skulls with grain flails and strip the dead of their clothes. In one of many recorded incidents, during 1644, inhabitants of seven Norman villages attacked and disarmed all the soldiers of a regiment that was to be quartered in Domfront.11 Such barbarous conduct exacted immense human and material costs. An ordinance of 1643 charged: "so desolate and ruined are the towns and villages of the countryside, that they are in large part deserted and abandoned: from Neubourg petition in Berger, "Military and Financial Government in France," 101; Mme. Elbeuf letter in Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe," 179. AG, A : i22, #401, 21 November 1650. AG, A186, 14 February 1644, #62 in Landier, "Guerre, violences, et societe," 169. Twelve years later, villagers from Rocquigny, Largoye, and Mainbressy drove off companies of soldiers from Rocroi seeking loot in the countryside. AG, A 1 i46, #502, 20 July 1656. See Bernard Kroener, Les routes et les etapes. Die bersorgung derfranzoschichenArmeen in Nordostfrankreich (163S-1661) (Munster: 1980), 136-37,142-43, for other actions of French peasants and townspeople against troops. There is a tradition of peasants joining to attack troops. J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 14S0-1620 (Baltimore, MD: 1985), 191, tells how so many of Coligny's men were killed by peasants in 1569 that he sent troops back to punish the area. There are also cases in which peasants caught enemy soldiers and turned them over to military commanders for a douceur•, a kind of tip. Fritz Redlich, Depraeda militari: Looting and Booty ISOO-I8IS, supplement 39, Vieteljahrschriftfur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Wiesbaden: 1956), 36-37.

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which will follow general ruin if a good and certain establishment of etafes and food is not provided to [the troops] in passage.5512 A petition from the province of Burgundy, dated 1644, painted a most disturbing image of woe in the province which "suffered all the ruins that war can produce . . . by the passage and sojourn of several armies that have burned a great number of communities [and caused] the death of a fifth of the population . . . and the extreme poverty of the majority of those who survived.5513 These horrors accelerated during the rebellion of the Fronde, 1648-53, when the exhaustion of areas within France significantly lowered the tax revenues.14 So dreadful were the extremes that the 1635-59 war caused population to fall from 20 million to 18 million.15

Necessity of the Tax of Violence Contemporaries expressed little doubt as to the cause of violence directed by soldiers against the surrounding population: The force that drove them to brutal action was their own misery. Hungry, unpaid soldiers turned ugly. Their cruel behavior was rarely seen as gratuitous, and even the government, itself, saw reason behind it. An ordinance of 1651 provided a royal admission "that the disorders committed by my soldiers traveling to points of rendezvous from my armies have resulted from the poor quality of the places of quartering and from the lack of etctpes on their routes.5516 Mazarin wrote to Turenne in 1659: "I have received complaints from many areas along the frontier about the disorders and extraordinary violence committed by the troops. I know well that it is difficult to limit them and to try to subsist, since they have not been paid; but I ask you to take cares that they live with less license.5517 Perhaps the most authoritative, and one of the most damning, statements appeared in 1660. In the ordinance granting amnesty to French soldiers and civilians guilty of illegal acts during the preceding war, Louis XIV justified his sweeping pardon by arguing that "we know that, for the most part, the disorders committed by our soldiers have resulted only from the lack of their pay.55 It is not surprising that many of the seventeenth12

13 14 15

16 17

SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 16, #79, 15 July 1643. Problems with etapes is often singled out as a primary cause of misconduct. See, as well, van Houtte's comments, Hubert van Houtte, Les Occupations etrangeres en Belgique sous Vancien regime, 2 vols., Recueil de Travaux Publiespar lafacultede Philosophic ctLettrcs de VJJniversite de Gand, fasicule 62-63 (Ghent and Paris: 1930), i:43Cote-d'Or, C 3673, 4 January 1644. This is one of the primary theses of Berger, "Military and Financial Government in France." Philippe Contamine, ed., Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 1 (Paris: 1992), 382. It should be noted that Kroener, Les routes et les etapes, 105, 114, does not believe that the damage by troops, at least in the period 1635-38, was as claimed. SHAT, Bib., Col. des ord., vol. 18, #115, 15 July 1651. 8 November 1659 letter to Turenne, in Jules Mazarin, Lettres du cardinal Mazarin, eds. P. Cheruel and G. d'Avenel, vols. 6-9 (Paris: 1890-1906), 9:409.

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century disciplinary ordinances began by stating how and when soldiers were to be paid.18 If violence in town and country resulted from shortfalls in supply and pay, that violence must be considered as a question of resource mobilization and administration rather than of discipline. Some historians have argued that an administrative revolution transformed the conduct of war before the personal reign of Louis XIV. However, recent inquiries question the nature and extent of administrative development before 1659. David Parrott charges that the Richelieu years did not greatly increase the efficiency of military administration and that scholars beguiled by royal ordinances miss the true catchas-catch-can character of French military administration as revealed by ministerial correspondence. 19 As one-time intendant of the army and later surintendant desfinances^Claude Bullion wrote in his 1637 memoir on etapes: "Up to now, [the king] has made handsome and good regulations that are not executed at all.3520 However, it is necessary to go one step further. Abuse did not simply undermine the system; abuse was the system, or at least violent requisition constituted an essential element of the system. Extortion of money, goods, and even sex by soldiers did not exist outside the French method of maintaining troops in the field; instead, it was an integral and necessary aspect of the way in which the Bourbon monarchy tapped the resources required by its expanded army. Such brutal requisition may not have been orderly or efficient, and it may have put the French in a strategic straitjacket, but it was the only way that the French could maintain an army in the field when the regular flow of money and supplies to the army inevitably broke down. French officials during the first half of thcjjrand siecle accepted unauthorized seizure and extortion as necessary, even if it was regrettable. In other words, the Tax of Violence was, to a degree, policy. A letter written by the experienced military intendcmt, Charles Machault, to the secretary of state for war, Michel Le Tellier, in 1649 shows that he understood that insufficient pay would produce predictable results, and that those results, though lamentable, were a price that must be paid. 21 Machault argued that the regulation for winter quarters that he had just received from Le Tellier was "a complete impossibility'5 unless the minister doubled the allotted pay. The soldiers "are all naked," Machault insisted, and while "they will have nothing," they "will see their hosts drink and eat well." Machault reasoned "that it is better to institute laws and regulations that can be observed and to punish the infractions than to propose . . . austere ones that are not executed . . . ." These are 18

19

20 21

SHAT, Bib., vol. 20, #134, November 1660. For some disciplinary ordinances see, vol. 29, #8, #44, and #70. David Parrott, "The Administration of the French Army During the Ministry of Cardinal Richelieu," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University: 1985. Bouillon, "Memoire raisonne," BN, Chatre de Cange, vol. 9, #367. AG, A1116, #482, 10 December 1649, Machault to Le Tellier. I would like to thank Professor Armine Mortimer for her assistance in interpreting this key document.

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problems that Le Tellier already must have known "by reason and experience." Machault cautioned his master: "And if they do not have what they need, in my conscience, I could not [punish them] no matter what order I might receive." The intendant then mused that "It is only peace that can bring the remedies you seek for the pain and suffering of the people. As long as war lasts, soldiers are necessary, even with their vices and rapines." Machault then offered an extended religious argument that men were flawed and that they might be forgiven their excesses if the state did not fulfill its obligations to them. Saint John the Baptist, he wrote, "did not fly into a rage against the soldiers nor did he scold them [for their deeds], except when they did evil [after] they had been paid"; and Jesus had "censured those who blamed the apostles for having gathered stalks of grain in the fields of others, since the need for food and clothing is so pressing." Finally he returned to the point that he would publish the orders if it pleased the king, but he would not accept personal responsibility for them. As long as the king chose to raise and maintain armies above his means to pay and feed them, pillage was inevitable. As the Mercurefranpoisput it in 1622, "One finds enough soldiers when one gives them the freedom to live off the land, and allowing them to pillage supports them without pay." A discussion of the royal council concerning the increase of forces in 1635 appealed to much the same logic: "By increasing his majesty's forces, which are already very large, it will be difficult for him to pay them on time . .. [but] they can be maintained without giving them much money if instead we give them more freedom than they have enjoyed before to live off the country." Louis expressed almost exactly the same sentiment in his memoirs for the year 1666: "Of late, some commanders are found who have made great armies subsist for a long time without giving them any pay other than the license of pillaging everywhere." Common soldiers easily calculated that pillage equaled pay. A report on the conduct of German troops who operated in Champagne during 1649 stated that "The Germans proclaimed loudly that they had been given Champagne as pay and prey."22 While heinous, the system produced results. To be a soldier was to carry a license: Pike and musket served as the final guarantees of pay and subsistence. In a sense, common soldiers acted as creditors behind the French state's investment in European mastery; the ultimate collateral behind this ambition was the capacity of soldiers to take for themselves, if need be. Without it, the French monarchy would have had to live within its means and reduce the numbers of its battalions. In addition, officers felt compelled to tolerate the crimes committed by their own troops. If a military commander on campaign faced the dissolution of 22

Mercure franfois in Charles Tilly, The Contentious French (Cambridge, MA: 1986), 123; council of 28 April 1635 in Georges Pages, La Guerre de trente ans (Paris: 1939), 225-26; Louis, memoirs for 1666, Louis XIV, Memoires de Louis XLV^ Charles Dreyss, e